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

[DragonParadox]

Clarity of Purpose ​

Seventh Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC

"Did you think you could escape me? That I would not follow thee upon the shore?" The bronze-masked monstrosity made a slurping slithering sound that only those unfortunate enough to be familiar with its dreadful kind would recognize as an attempt at laughter, not for its own sake of course, for such crude vocalizations could not begin to express its mind, but all the better to crush the will of the man before it under its heel.

"Great Lord, I have ever been loyal to our bargain," the captain of the Grey Log seemed to shrink in on himself with every word, as though he might be able to crawl into the coarse grey sand at his feet. "I was merely surprised to find one of your great... glorious... that is..."

"Spare me thy babbling praise, mortal." The bronze-sheathed tentacles twitched ominously. This too Jeyne Weaver knew to be a lie. She could feel its true malice like a cold unwavering flame at the back of her mind. If the monster wished to feed upon the fool it had enslaved to its will then it would do so with no more warning than a farmer afforded his hogs before the slaughter. "I have a task for you."

"Yes..." The man's voice almost broke as he looked back towards his ship moored in the inlet. How much did his crew know of his black bargain, the sorceress wondered as she listened to his voice upon the night wind. Almost she could pity him now, with her back pressed against a wall and certain of stout hearts and sharp blades on either side. But she remembered the horror and the helplessness, the strange dreams that would leave her shivering in the grip of nameless terrors. She had not chosen that, nor been repaid for it. The man on the shore below was no more like her than the monstrosity conversing with him was like Wisdom Xor.

"We have sensed one of Clear Mind that is not beholden to the Elder Will upon this island..." The eater of minds paused, this time its posture freezing in true rage, if a creature that disdained all life save its own and its kindred could be said to feel true anger. "You would say a sorceress, but one of more refined arts than the crude fumbling of mortal magics. She was stolen from the Halls Below and there she will be returned."

They are talking about me, the mind-mage realized, dread trickling down her spine and pooling in her stomach.

Miri's head snapped up in the dark, the jade-bound spiritling ever attentive to her moods. Instinctively the mage tried to send wordless reassurance through the bond between them, though that did nothing but add a layer of disbelief onto the worry. It was hard to lie without words... harder still to lie to a friend.

Unexpectedly anger flashed through Jeyne, a red haze that sharpened the mind rather than dim it. Who did this thing think it was to make her cower in the dark, to make her feel small and helpless after all this time? The mind-healer had been clear that vengeance would not solve all her ills and she was not one to deny an Angel's wisdom, but in this time and in this place vengeance sounded good.

"I think we heard enough," she proclaimed to the others, her voice thankfully low even in spite of her inner turmoil. "We can capture the servant and take the master's skull." The small part of her that still yearned for the simple pleasures of her drinking herbal tea and watching the sun sink into the Sunset Sea beyond Lannisport marveled at how easily she could speak of taking skulls like some savage reaver, but the thought was soon gone, leaving scarce a ripple in her mind. She did not flinch when Leila took out a long bone from the pouch at her side and whispered to it arcane phrases to set it to guard against steel and sorcery, she did not jump at the hiss if steel unsheathed.

OOC: I thought about rolling the combat, late hour or no, but I just don't feel comfortable juggling so many sheets I'm still not fully familiar with at this late hour. I did not want to end the interlude on the note of a boring fight so I just snipped it at the characterization and I'll do the fight from someone elses' perspective, maybe Ser Kennos.

 

[DragonParadox]

An Arcane Tangle ​

Second Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC

At Dany's answer you fall silent within as without, and for a long moment you weigh your one path against another. Thankfully it seems the herald is expecting shock and inner struggle, seeming to grow more confident and more hopeful with every passing moment that the hour of its deliverance is at last at hand.

"Varys," you send first to your familiar. "Warn Zherys, Benerro, and Teana that I am about to try to lure this thing into a trap." Ser Richard knows you enough to guess that you have a plan, and you remember well that Rina had followed your command at once when you had dealt with the traitor Fey. Ordinarily you would say the same of Teana, but given how much pain this horror had caused her you would rather err on the side of caution.

They all react each in their own manner, breath catchings slightly, eyes widening by the barest fraction, but all of them are skilled for their own reasons in keep their inner selves from reflecting upon the face and body. N'gath might guess that you had conversed with them, but not what you had said. Hopefully your own attempt will go as well. It would be no easy feat to destroy the manse without harm to the rest of the city and the less said of the possibility of the fire spirit abroad and loose the better.

"How can we free you if you have become one with this structure?" you ask aloud through gritted teeth as though the words pain you.

"How easily you dip your banners in defeat..." Mad giggles spark off the walls, though something tells you there might be as much mummery to this mirth as to your own question. It wants to be underestimated. "Will you not take my oath, then, that I will shine upon some other land far off from your ambitions?"

"I asked you a question and made no offer yet," you reply sharply, finding it disturbingly easy to play along. Unlike all the times you have played the arrogant stripling, the foolish conjurer or some other exaggerated mask, these are the answers you would have given if the Fey were not lying. Time is more precious than gold or gems, more precious than knowledge. To have it is squandered so would be a greater harm done to your plans than anything save a dagger in the heart. No, worse than that even, for you can turn death's hand but not the pitiless wheels of the clock.

"Have your ice witch compel the answers from Tagar," the spirit replies. "Only from his tangled mind could one grasp the tangled web of his folly." N'Gath answers with disdain. "Remember, the wheel turns blindly and none are at the helm..."

"Do not force me speak of that day," the tattered shade of the dead magister now divested of its shroud of memory proclaims hollowly. "He has sought to break me for years. Has it been years or centuries? The passage of time means so little now..."

"What do you mean break you?" Teana asks, obviously struggling to keep her tone level when faced with what remained of the man responsible for the Day of Fire, for the death of so many close to her.

"The betrayer has sought to bewilder my mind with old memories and false hope, to make me see the day of his treachery as something other than what it was." Ash swirls around the figure as he moves closer. "Yet no matter how many times he forces me to witness that which was I can never forget my death, never forget what I am. I will not be made a fool of a second time!" The voice rises to a screech, like metal carving through stone on the last words.

"It was trying to make you believe in a world where it did not betray you so that you would then speak of your precautions thinking it an ally?" Zherys interjects, unshaken by the spirit's rage rage.

"Yes... yes, and he will lie to you... of how sweetly he will lie, how much will he promise... ashes... ashes and blood... do not trust it, never trust it," the increasingly frantic specter proclaims.

Of course you have no intention of trusting N'Gath any further than you can throw the Red Keep and all within it, but that is not something you can say here where the dark spirit himself might hear you. So the question is now how to persuade the shade of magister Tagar that you would not make his mistakes or even if it is worth attempting to converse with it at all. You could simply ask Rina to attempt to compel the Wraith, but she had never commanded the unliving, much less for such a purpose. Worse still if the dead magister's will should prove stronger than it could destroy itself upon your weapons or flee through the manse.

What do you do?

[] Try to convince the wraith to explain what happened on the day of the summoning
-[] Write in

[] Ask Rina to try to compel the Wraith

[] Write in

OOC: The rolls were pretty close, but ultimately in your favor.

 

[DragonParadox]

Guardians Upon the Shore ​

Seventh Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC

Armor creaked and gravel crunched underfoot as Ser Kennos of Kayce breathed in the cold night air. The arcane metal didn't even smell like iron, nary a hint of rust, even the polish smelled of fresh spring herbs more than the faintly rancid oils even the most dutiful of knights had to learn to ignore eventually. Then Lady Leila tapped him on the shoulder, giving him some kind of magic blessing that made the air around him ripple with subtle sorcery, and then another that rang like a clarion call in his mind before doing the same for Ser Roger.

"I wish we had some sort of veiling magic," the other knight groused as he hefted his great mace gleaming black in the moonlight. How he was planning to sneak up on anything with that great man-killer of a weapon only the Lord of Light knew.

"It's unlikely we could creep up unseen on one of the Deep Ones with only the simplest of veils, and if you would wish for the greater ones than you might as well wish for a Companion to kill that thing," Wisdom Weaver replied as she closed her eyes to summon her own strange magics.

"Well, I for one do not wish for a Companion," the little blue Dragon-Fey said. "They would steal all the glory, and I can go proper unseen just fine, see?" With these words she vanished again from sight.

"No, I don't," Kennos chuckled. There was something strangely comfortable about an ally who approached the prospect of battle with the same carefree curiosity she gave the idea of morning tea.

With these last words the two knights nodded at each other and stepped past to the edge of the boulder they had been hiding behind, pebbles tumbling down the slope to the shore from there passing.

"For the Dragon!" the two Westerlanders shouted, their war cries drowning out the the monster as it spoke and even the sound of the sea behind him as the captain cried out in shock and fear, trying to scramble for the boarding axe at his side.

The thing made no sound, nor was there any fear upon its hideous bronze visage. Instead, Kennos heard it slithering into his mind like black maggots. "And here I thought I would have to look for my meal tonight. My thanks for the sacrifice of giving yourselves to me." The most horrifying part of those words, enough to pass even through the haze of battle, was that they did not feel like a threat or some black jest, it felt sincere.

Thunder roared around the thing as Lady Leila loosed her magic, but it stood unmoved like a rock in a gale, a bolt of boiling fire splashed against it, but it slid off with not a single scorch mark. Lord of Light give me strength to carry the torch given to me, Kennos prayed silently and he felt the will of R'hllor fill him with more strength than any spell. Golden light raced up the edge of his sword as he raised it to strike the misshapen head from the thing's shoulders, but in an almost lazy motion the Deep One waved one of its swords and the air around it twisted unnaturally, turning the blow aside as hungry black flames kindled upon his other blade, a brand torn free from hell's own heart.

But as the Deep One's eyes were fixed on Kennos' sword Roger's mace thundered down upon the creature's arm, bruising unnaturally soft flesh and the stolen bone beneath it. There was no pain in its dreadful 'voice', only a sort of cold glee. "I see you have brought her... good."

A formless grey hole seemed to open in the air behind the monster and it began to fall backwards. It was going after Jeyne, Kennos realized. Ser Roger's hammer smashed down again with more desperation that skill, turned aside by magic, but this time Kennos' fury would not be turned aside. Valyrian Steel bit through the twisted magic and into the flesh of the monster's shoulder, ending the spell before it had been fully cast. To add insult to injury the Fey Dragon's chirping filled the air and the black fire blade slipped from the foe's grip, with a little help from Lady Leila do judge from the lurch in Kennos' stomach that heralded fate unwound.

Alas that the other sword was no less deadly, the bronze slipping through the joints of Kennos' armor with impossible swiftness and speed. It was like fighting Ser Lonmouth, a small panicked voice in the back of his mind noted. No, if you were fighting Ser Lonmouth you would be dead already, another part of him added in a rather unhelpful counterpoint to add to agony under his arm. Why was everything getting blurry?

Poison or some curse on the sword, the knight realized grimly, wondering if he was about to meet R'hllor so soon after finding his faith. Then another bolt of magic arced overhead and the monster's head caught fire, bronze boiling upon it, a smell like charred fish filling the air.

"You presume... much... little... toy." Rage black as the ocean's depths filled the Deep One's words as it began to motion again to work its far-striding magic.

Then the black hammer of Ser Roger Reyne smashed into the side of its head, making the soft bronze ring like a bell and the foe crumple to a heap.

OOC: Since I know you guys are going to ask everyone besides Leila, who just got a level on her last important fight, levels up from this. That was a 10th level Illithid Psychic Warrior. It had very good odds of grabbing Jeyne and running off with her, or even killing one of the knights if it had both swords and the power it invested into the attack, before a Grease spell got in the way.

 

[DragonParadox]

Legacy of Sorrows ​

Second Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC

By wishcraft a ward of utter silence springs from your thoughts, its price barely felt as you bid Varys to tell the Herald that you intend to gain its summoner's trust. It is not even untrue, only the means by which that trust is to be earned need to be kept a secret. "You claimed to regret your final deed in life, prove it then," you proclaim bluntly, the better to cut through the shade's dark reverie. "Help us do more than lock this peril in the heart of Volantis like an ember forever threatening to burst into flames."

You do not flinch when the wraith's form envelops you in unnatural darkness, you do not lower your gaze as the crimson sparks of its eyes flare impossibly bright. You had expected anger, welcomed it even, for where anger dwells shame cannot be too far. "You seek to treat with him, to succeed where I have failed? I know that pride... I once shared it. What a fool I was, better to loose than to bind. Leave!" he demands.

"What aught I leave? This ruined manse whose threshold even the most desperate beggar will think twice of crossing?" you pause, looking back at Zherys and Benerro standing side by side not only with each other but with your companions also. "If you would ask for the latter then I fear I cannot oblige for I am Lord of Volantis, its people passed into my care. As to the former, look around you. Would any dutiful lord ignore such peril?"

"You will serve Ymeri or you will perish, there is no third path to take," the Wraith proclaims mournfully.

"Than I shall have the third path cut forth upon an edge of Valyrian steel," you motion towards Ser Richard.

For a long moment the dead man stares at the knight, the thinking blade of dragonsteel and the armor bright with the light of lost Heaven. Finally he sighs, though bereft of any form of flesh and blood to require such a gesture: "You will see N'Gath ended?"

There is no need for any more fanciful proclamation and so you answer simply. "Yes."

"Know then that the spell that keeps him here was sealed in my own blood unjustly spilled even as the fires burned through the city. Know also that to undo the incantation one of my living kin must stand forth where I was murdered and say truthfully and without compulsion that they bear N'Gath no ill will while knowing his nature and his deeds."

Wonderful, you think, struggling to keep back a sigh. Not only would you have to somehow explain the stakes and the reason for the herald's presence here to one with likely no knowledge of magic or the workings of the Spheres, but also one who has lived through and likely greatly fears the return of the Day of Flame. Even if all that could be done than you would be bringing this soul, whoever they may be, into the middle of your confrontation with the Herald of Ymeri. Another path occurs to you, of course—if it is living blood that must undo the binding than you could simply restore magister Tagar, but by all reasonable measure the man deserves to be dead and you are loath to restore life only to then end it. Lastly you could simply try to set strength against strength, seeking to shatter the binding with your own greatest magics.

What do you do?

[] Seek a blood relative of Tagar and try to fulfill the conditions to undo the binning

[] Restore Tagar to life

[] Try to use the strongest of your magics to shatter the binding at the cost of being less able to fight the Herald once it is freed

[] Write in

OOC: If you guys have more questions you can write in those in too, of course.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Old Duels and New Lords ​

Second Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC

They had expected to find folks here for tales of some of the men of the deep North coming to Hardhome had reached the Wall eight months ago and more, but not so many nor so well armed. They called these the Screaming Caves, Vee had heard, and she could guess why. The cold wind hissed through a thousand cracks and openings, some large enough to be doors, others the roosting places of squabbling sea birds and others still into which you could scarce fit a knife through. But though the stones talked with the voice of the wind the people who had made these caves their home seemed bound and determined to cover the sound with their comings and goings.

Stone struck stone and knappers worked to replace spear and arrow tips, guards talked and japed, bone dice rolled and infants cried, below it all the comforting sound of countless fires crackling for food, for warmth, and a thousand other tasks meaningful for the lives of humankind. Vee had no idea why the men of the south called these folks 'wildlings' unless it be because they were poorer in craft and in gold, but if that be all that merited the name then surely the Genies of the Opaline Vault and Armun Kelisk should name all that lived under the sun by the same name.

"The Chief'll see ye now, raven-favored," a woman's voice rang out from deeper inside the caves—a dark-haired woman with a heavy steel spear, the mark of rank and fortune, slung over her shoulder. "Don't worry, I told 'im not to shoot arrows at you lest one of ye turn into a Dragon."

At that the Dragon looked at her in askance. "You see deeper than most of your kin," he said, his pride tickled Vee knew. That part of him was as soft as his scales were hard.

"I'm not a witch if that's what ye mean, I just got a good memory," the woman replied. "I met your King when he was out wandering the wilds looking for old magics. Saw the Children with my own eyes I did."

"You're Elle, aren't you? Dany told me about you, how you helped fight the carrion beasts and offered to duel the Great Bear..." Waymar trailed off, near enough to offering to kill the monster for her from the looks of things. Thank Tree and Snake he kept the offer behind his teeth, this didn't look like one who'd take it well.

"Aye, I fought it, nearly died, but he had to call quarter or I would have put a spear through his eye," came the quietly proud reply. It was only then that Vee realized that the weapon she was carrying wasn't steel at all, but True Silver fitted onto a shaft of ashwood.

"And where did you obtain such a weapon?" Amrelath asked, a gleam like fire in his eye.

"Traded it with your folk up in Skane," the spear-wife replied. "Now come on, Mance's waiting and he doesn't have the time for me to tell you the whole tale."

As they passed deeper into the caves one wit called after them, "It's not like you'd have to tell them yourself, Elle, you've trotted out that tale so many times any man or woman in the camp can tell it and likely half the suckling babes."

Elle pretended not to hear, though there was a small smile playing at the corner of her lips.

***​

The faint sound of lute strings being idly picked echoed through the tunnels, its source not long in showing himself. Mance Rayder, Chief of Hardhome, was a man of middling height but with a warrior's broadness to his shoulders with brown hair down to his shoulders starting to go to grey. Unlike many of the more well off Free Folk he wore leather and fur, not a chain shirt or other southern steel here in the caves, confident he wouldn't lose them as soon as he set them down. Upon his shoulders a black leather cloak was patched with red silk that gleamed and shimmered in the firelight.

Spoiler: Mance Rayder

The music trailed off at the sight of them, though the deft fingers strung another note or two from habit before he got up off the bench and looked them up and down. "It isn't often that a man finds wizards at his door with ravens playing heralds, though more often now in these strange times to be sure."

Not half as strange as it might have been, Vee thought briefly, wondering how he would have taken a two-headed snake man. To judge from the quick light in his eyes and the ease with which he spoke with mayhap better than most, but the guards at the gate would likely have raised a ruckus, so Riz'Neth had stayed back.

"We aim to look through the city and find out more of what it was that ended it," Waymar answered pliantly like he usually did.

"Well now, that's a mighty long way to come for some idle fancy about days long passed, ain't it?" Mance asked, leaning in close. "You think there's something still here, don't you?" he whispered.

"Aye, there is," Vee replied, remembering the unnatural quiet of the city below the cliffs. "Know anything about it?"

"Oh, I know a tale or ten, but if you want me to tell it I'm gonna need something from you," the Free Folk chief replied.

"Name it," the Dragon hissed, the light in his eyes a warning to any who would think to ask too much of him.

"I wanna come along and see it put to rest," Mance replied, his face as hard as stone. "A king doesn't let strangers fight his battles."

OOC: Sorry this took so long, I had to roll a lot of background stuff for Elle to see if she lived to show up here.

 

[DragonParadox]

Dreamer's Guile ​

Second Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC

You cannot help but wonder if Ymeri had chosen the one to usher her herald into the world based on some strange affinity. The conditions of the binding are of an almost Fey-like nature, which is to say as frustrating to navigate as a maze made of thorn-bushes. What would N'Gath even do while you take to the streets of Volantis seeking out an heir to the dead magister explaining the binding and convincing him of the necessity of undoing it? Worse still if you took the easy path and return the unwitting architect of Volantis' woes to life. Quite apart from what Zherys, Teana, or Benerro might think, you shudder to imagine the result if it were to be publicly known. Those resentful at the annexation would be only too happy at the chance to proclaim that you orchestrated the Day of Flame, never mind that you and Dany were struggling to survive on the streets of Braavos at the time.

'What worth this mortal's paltry workings against a Dragon's will?' Varys hisses in your ear. 'Shatter them by the strength of your sorcery, and let us see the mettle of this spirit that scurries through the walls like a rat.'

It does have a certain appeal to it you must agree, though on the other side of the scales it is the same appeal that facing Mammon in battle for the right to hold Mereth's oath had. You turn to the others to converse by your familiar's silent voice, weighing one risk against another to see how your foe might be slain.

In the end Benerro and Rina advise to restore the Magister Tagar, giving him the chance to make amends for his sins, Zherys and Teana are agreed that it would be best to contest the bindings with sorcery, and Ser Richard perhaps unsurprisingly suggests anything but the latter option. Perhaps he had made the connection to summoning Mammon also. The small smile fades quickly from your lips as quickly as it had come. He has a point about the dangers of wild magic, not to yourself or your companions but to the city. This is not some barrow in the Far North, or a temple lost in the jungles of Sothoryos, but one of the most populous cities in all of Essos.

You close your eyes first with a sigh of frustration, but then turn your thoughts to the dream hovering ever at the edge of your perception, the whispered voice of all Wyrms that had come before. How do you bring to battle that which is in brick and mortar snared?

The answer you discover is not merely of the deep dreams, but dreaming itself. Long ago, before even the Sundering, there dwelt a Dragon Sage who sought to tangle the insight of his rivals, to give false counsel and drive them all to ruin. His work was never finished, for he had made too many foes too swiftly, but still that which he knew he dreamed, and now you remember.

"I know of a way to get at the enemy without damaging its bindings," you send across the ether. "However, some of us will have to remain here to guard the bodies of those who are to face the Herald."

"Astral projection?" Zherys asks, intrigued enough to have grown impatient with echoing his thoughts through Varys. "It does not seem to me that the wards here cross the borders of the Material Sphere."

"Not quite, but similar in execution," you reply, turning to Ser Richard you add. "I could find no more worthy a protector than you, Ser."

The knight nods quickly, ever dutiful, though you can also read the pride in his gaze at the words.

"Holy Benerro, I ask that you would turn R'hllor's light to ensuring our passage stays undisturbed also," you add.

With a gesture is closer to a bow than a nod the mage-priest steps closer to the knight, carefully watching him, you suspect to measure the enchantments upon him. He briefly lays a hand upon the Dragonsteel breastplate and whispers a benediction of true sight. "More long lasting than the enchantment you bear can provide."

Other blessings are cast, other wards enforced, then you, Zherys, Teana, and Rina approach the far wall as you call to mind the words of that long wrought spell, the twisting syllables as familiar upon the tongue as the bedside tales you heard as a child.

Your souls sink through the wards like a blade through hot wax, N'Gath's curses booming around you. The betrayer is obviously surprised by the treachery.

What shape do you give the Mindscape?

[] An underwater battleground, utterly alien to the creatures of fire

[] The Circle of Battle, in an attempt to use the Fey's tale-bound nature against it

[] A Dragonstone Labyrinth, using your skill at architecture to befuddle and ambush the foe

[] Write in

OOC: Here we are, we are not in battle yet, but I figured it was worth exploring the character dynamics as well as where Viserys might have gotten the spell which he has never used or seen before.

 

[DragonParadox]

In the Iron Cage ​

Second Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC

A labyrinth of Cold Iron you build, the bane of all things Fey, submerged in icy waters to quench the hottest flames, but in this maze there is no treasure, only endless sprawling corridors meant to befuddle the mind of your foe, even as you approach it by swift and certain paths. One thing you had not done is make the waters flow for that would have impeded your own spell of finding. A pity you could not take the Wayfinder into the false dream, but wishcraft works just as well. "This way," you motion towards a rune-carved gate, the symbols utter nonsense meant to be a further distraction. Teana and Zherys are quick to follow, obviously having had some experience either swimming beneath the waves or flying above it, but Rina seems to hesitate and a moment later you realize why that might be.

In your haste to build the perfect trap you had forgotten that the last time she had fallen in cold water it had been the icy currents of the White Knife that had killed her. "Can you...?" you begin carefully, but she cuts you off.

"I can breath... er swim... swim wherever we need to go. This is not even real water, just a dream," she says, the last with bitterness turned upon herself.

"If it is real enough to trap the Herald of Ymeri, it's real enough to trouble you," Teana notes, turning to look at the younger woman. "The world we perceive is the world we live in, not some abstraction of utter truth."

"Alright, let's deal with this and then I can have a nice warm bath in the flesh," the jest comes out a touch forced, but you smile at it just the same

Her wish is not slow in coming into being, for though the labyrinth coils ever in what might seem an endless tangle of corridors the liar's dream is limited in scope and you know every path and opening to allow you not just to find your foe, but hopefully cut him off. The first sign of battle close at hand was the warming of the water, from lukewarm to hot to boiling currents that would melt the flesh from the bones of anyone not warded against heat and flame.

A moment later you catch a glimpse of a circular hole thirty feet across in one of the walls, the edges of the metal still burning white hot, you imagine attempting to find the way out by the most direct path. It seems N'Gath is clever enough to have refused to play the game you had laid out, but not quite clever enough to realize that countless tons of Cold Iron would slow him down just the same.

Teana sends a squid of writhing shadow-stuff through the gap to scout ahead, bidding it to return in a score-beats or less should it find the Herald, twenty heartbeats pass, then forty, and at last a full minute, nothing returns.

"It seems we have found our quarry, Your Grace," Zherys notes. "How do you judge we should approach?"

What do you reply?

[] Write in combat plan

OOC: I was tempted to just have them all charge ahead, but the fact is you guys are a lot more methodical about combat than I am when writing Viserys alone, so I felt it would be better to give you the chance, plus it's a little late to roll for combat.

 

[DragonParadox]

Mortality's Triumph ​

Second Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC

Teana's form ripples as one of her shadow forms separates and moves deeper into the chamber, an anchor for swift escape should the battle go poorly, before conjuring a snarling spectral wolf to serve as her guard. All the while while Zherys writes runes of warding into the air to bar any who would approach him.

For her part Rina draws a long slow breath and utters a spell not of frost, but something darker by far. Her already fair skin turns waxen and her unbound hair becomes a halo of darkness around her head. Were it not for her eyes still showing the same spark of dogged courage, you would think her again in the thrall of the Others upon their icy thrones. Were this another time, another place, then you would ask again if she is well, but battle calls and so you speak only a word of fire, shields of boiling water rippling across all your company.

With that you swim through the hole edged in white hot iron to at last lay eyes upon your foe, a sphere of ever-shifting flame and elder glyphs that mark both its service of Ymeri and the tale of its being. No eyes has it, only a crown of fire wrought to mark which way it turns, but even were you blind you would know the weight of N'Gath's hateful gaze.

Spoiler: N'Gath, Herald of Ymeri

A spell of unbinding you speak into being, to strip its wards and protections... but the creature's fire merely consumes it with seemingly no will or effort in the doing. Without pausing for breath you turn your gaze to the ice, seeking to entomb it in the water that hisses angrily against its fiery form, but this too is thwarted by a flick of the foe's flames.

Perhaps the foe grows tired, though, for when Zherys flashes a line of black forward between them the spell finds its mark, not slaying the foe utterly as it might have almost any lesser being, but drawing a hiss of pain nonetheless. "You should have taken my offer!" the Herald of Ymeri roars, and you know not if it speaks to you or the Lord of Volantis, but N'Gath's curse is for Zherys, a chain of white-hot sorcery to strangle life and magic from him.

"My power is not yours to take, creature," the High Speaker proclaims, severing the chain with his staff before it can fully form.

As though emboldened by the words, Teana's wolf charges the Herald to restlessly bite a mouthful of flames, even as they begin to unravel its own form. As for the sorceress herself she weaves of shadow a spell to steal N'Gath's mind, but it scarce seems to notice.

"Such feeble sorcery this failing age possesses," the Fire Spirit mocks. "I shall purifying you all in flame as the forge purifies steel, and only those worthy shall have the honor of serving..."

You would never know what honor the servant of Ymeri spoke of for in that moment Rina speaks a single word. Rina's voice that seems to echo from the depths of some forgotten grave uttered in all mortal tongues and none: "Die."

The flames of N'Gath, favored Herald of Ymeri, go out like like a candle before the cold breath of the northern wind, not one more word to mark its passage.

***​

Your eyes snap open to the sight of soot stained stone and blackened wood, no trace of the luxurious study you had seen in the vision remaining, and the specter of Tagar remaining unchanged. Ser Richard has not shifted an inch from where you had last seen him but Benerro came to lean over Rina. "Are you entirely well, my lady?" the priest asks carefully.

"Yes, it's only a spell, I..." she begins uncertainly, looking down at hands that seemed to have long suffered the touch of the grave.

"I assumed as much," the Flame Keeper assures her. After a moment's hesitation he adds, "It is a heavy burden you bear, one many are willing to help you with as much as can be done, but also a great honor."

Rina looks up at the old priest, the disbelief in her eyes louder than words.

"Death is not itself an evil, nor is the night the rightful domain of horrors that would consume us all, by the arts you wield you reclaim both at least in some small measure and in doing so you remind us all that the Enemy can be not only driven back for a time, but defeated utterly, cast out from the world of form," he continues, the words soft and kind, but the belief behind them unshakable as stone.

Turning to face you he adds: "Now come, I believe we have much work ahead of us removing any dangerous relics and remains from this house lest they fall into the wrong hands." This too he means, of course, but from the faint shadow of a smile in the corner of his mouth you suspect he knows full well him much you wish to claim those relics he spoke of and from the looks of it he minds not at all.

"Indeed," Zherys agrees. "I would very much like to know just what the Awakening was and how the Herald of Ymeri came to be called."

What do you do next?

[] Question the Wraith
-[] Write in

[] Search the House for N'Gath's remains and any other magical artifacts or lore than may have survived the fire

[] Write in

OOC: The way I fluffed Epic Counterspell was as a sort of reactive super SR, so he did not get the normal SR a CR 23 fey would have gotten.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Secret Upon the Tongue ​

Sixth Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC

Amrelath glanced at the spell-script writ in his own blood, to remind himself of the needed arcane formula. It was a strange thing, this grimoire, closer than he would have ever have imagined bearing to the slow studied magics of men who needed to patch together their power from scraps. Yet he had learned much in the passing of the years in death and these brief frantic moonturns since he had returned to the skies whole and living. There was much use to be found in truly great mortals, though how to tell one from another he could not say with any surety yet. It was akin to wading through a stream-bed and trying to guess through the ripple of the waters which of the pebbles were in fact uncut jewels.

"What've you got?" the young flesh-smith asked as she cleaned the fetid corpse-blood off her pale god-forged staff. The bloated corpses that dragged themselves ashore in the night to attack them had not, of course, been a threat, but rather a clue that they had the right current beneath their wings, though it did beg the question of just what had driven the dead to rise from their rest, besides the paltry mortal lifespan that made the bones of men all too eager to jump to the call of even the most inept necromancer.

"Patience, young one, I am not reading tomorrow's weather in a handful of chicken bones," the Dragon proclaimed before intoning the spell to make the voices of the True Dreams grow louder. He snapped one of the corpses' bones with a swift twist of his wrist so that he might observe the fracture patterns. All magic was the imposition of order upon chaos, but it often left patterns beyond the intent of the power that birthed it, like wet footprints in the sand.

The marrow is still fresh... interesting. Moistening a finger with the red liquid, he brought it to the tip of his tongue. Bitter of course, faintly poisonous as most things involving the living dead were, though nothing to threaten his constitution, but there was something else there, metallic, but also not something precious, something rare.

As the answer came to him the Dragon looked around for the local chief, king, or whatever else his kindred were calling him. He looked more wary than usual for some reason. "Are there any stony vales near this place, where large zargh..." He bit his tongue on the draconic word that would mean nothing to the man. How did one even say 'metamorphic stone' in the tongue of these lands? Did they even have any notion of how stone would transform over time by the workings of fire currents or simply the titanic pressures of the deep earth? "Are there any deep and stony vales near this place were your folk may once have prospected for precious stones?"

"As the songs of the Crab Men go there were all sorts of things traded through Hardhome—furs, timber, wine, and copper, to hear some tales there was practically honey and wine flowing through the gutters, but precious stones..." He trailed off, tapping a rhythm with his foot to some song only he knew. "Eyes like jade, brighter than emeralds, from the sunrise lands..."

"Yes, that," the dragon hissed somewhat impressed. Perhaps this man did have the wisdom to rule his fellows, under a suitable overlord at least. "The bones of the dead carried an echo of jade likely wrought of sympathetic magic."

"I know can seek the substance with my magic," the voice of the two-headed serpent sorcerer echoed through Amrelath's mind, subtle and sure as ever.

Alas that there were no easy answers. There was no jade, polished or raw, within the ruins of Hardhome though they searched through every crevice and ruin, so they decided instead to follow the source. Though finding a lost mine that had not been in use for centuries would be no easy task, Amrelath was certain that his keen eyes could pick it out.

OOC: Not a very long update, but I think worthwhile to show Amrelath putting more than his combat skills to use. The undead they destroyed were ghouls, nothing special, just another 16 HD for the Forge.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Wound Stitched Clean ​

Second Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC

Zherys is nothing if not effective at seeking everything and anything that might be of worth in the ruined mansion, from small piles of light grey ash that were once books sifted from among the heavier refuse of long ruined shelves, to the holy idols of countless gods familiar and strange once hidden behind a sliding wall. That one of those idols is a warped human figure carved in yellowing bone with tentacles flowing where its mouth should be escapes neither of you. "I suppose we should all be thankful that Tagar was ensnared by Ymeri and not something worse..." the High Speaker sighs as he sweeps everything on the shelf towards the folds of your cloak. "How the fool managed to get this adept in arcane matters while not having the wit to beware of spirits' gifts I could not begin to guess."

Gained Magister Tagar's Book Collection (Ashes)

Gained Ancient Idols (Non-magical)

"The triumph of hope over..." Your words cut off as you feel something pulling at your shadow. Teana's suggestion that you break off pieces of your shadow to search through the ruins faster had felt decidedly off to begin with, like a thousand feather-light touches down your spine every time the shadows touched something new, but the last pull was clearly a sign that they had found something, hopefully N'Gath's remains. The dead magister had been unable to shed any light on where they might be found and divinations had failed, likely because you could not describe what you seek sufficiently for the magic to take hold.

***​

"That certainly puts away all doubts of rest, and all fears," Benerro says, looking at the slightly uneven fiery crystal that had shattered and melted its way into a fifteen-foot-deep crater in the center of what had once been a dining room. As large as two clenched fists held side by side with coiling flame dancing in its heart, the shard of arcane matter radiates such power that you suspect even one blind to magic could feel it on their skin.

Gained Heart of N'Gath (Aura Overwhelming Evocation and Abjuration)

Spoiler: Heart of N'Gath

"What fears?" Ser Richard asks the priest, never one to let a sign of danger pass him by without his knowledge.

"It requires a certain measure of arcane power to sustain such a mighty spirit of unclean flame apart from its patron. I feared that it would simply scatter to the winds. Given its nature that would most likely mean fire... a great deal of fire." The red-robed priest turns to you. "I am thankful you thought to empty the houses near at hand, but even more glad that we did not have to discover if it was far enough."

You nod in heartfelt agreement as you begin to clamber down into the pit to retrieve the gem. Oddly enough in spite of the fire seemingly trapped within it is no warmer to the touch than the surrounding stone, though as you touch it you notice one of your warding spells burn away. It seems to echo some of the power that had made the Herald of Ymeri so difficult to strike with magic.

With this final and greatest treasure your search concludes for it seems that what the fire did not claim that fateful day of the magister's folly the Fey loyal to Ymeri had stolen away in the years since. Still, you do not begrudge the lack, the books would doubtlessly make an interesting addition to your collection and you can finally set your mind at ease.

By the time you return to Rina and Teana, the shade of Tagar had been laid to its final rest, though you doubt he would find his fate in death particularly restful given the evils his folly had wrought.

"You should tear this place down, Your Grace," the Scholarum Headmistress says, looking back at the now darkened entry hall. "No, better yet build something beautiful, something to commemorate all that was lost but also shine with hope for Volantis' future."

What do you reply?

[] Write in

OOC: This can also be a 'what next vote' if you guys want. The rolls for loot were pretty extreme, no magic items and all the books will need to be ritually restored, but you got the Herald's remains in the most stable form possible. A lower roll would have required you guys to stabilize it somehow with a risk of explosion.