New friends and allies and lack of goodbyes

The events described below are not necessarily in their proper chronological order. It seemed like far too much work to make sure everything was in its proper place, and since I'm the only one who will be reading this that seems quite alright. 

King's Landing

After all the fun with Niram Lado, we decide there's really nothing more for us to do in our fabulous(ly smelly) capital. I send some of the guys out to find a ship while I read through Lado's journals. Now, I've dealt with a fair amount of men of disreputable character, but this guy? This guy, he's a piece of work. I don't really think men are evil. Cowardly, egotistical, power hungry, sure. But Lado, he's just plain evil. There are numerous references that goes into excruciating detail of torture, sexual sadism, murder and so on and so forth. He'a s true believer in Daemon, mostly because he's the supreme evil guy in the world. So I feel pretty bad about not catching this arsehole before he fled the city. He'll hopefully get his soon enough. I send a letter to Seagard detailing everything we've discovered, as well as our intention to go to Lys as soon as possible.

We find a ship soon enough, captained by a female Braavosi, and luckily not possessed of quite as big an ego as the previous Braavosi captain we hired. We buy some weapons from Pebbleton's store front, both as a cover story and to earn some cash on the trip. After receiving pleasant news from Seagard (see below), we set out.

Lys

The journey is very uneventful. On the way, I ponderously make my way through some of the dark lore Lado left behind. It is...both exciting and very, very grim. I'm fairly sure I could, with some more work, actually learn how to summon a deadly dark shadow. The only problem is it requires a sacrifice...a human sacrifice. I don't think I'm quite ready to cross that treshold just yet, and hopefully never will be. On the other hand, I don't inform any of the others either. I've learned to never give away anything about your hand unless you absolutely have to. Worst comes to worst one day, say old man Frey definitely, absolutely has to die - well. Options are good, even if they're really crappy ones.

Our arrival in Lys is free of trouble. I've been here a couple of times before in my earlier journies, I must say it's one of the more pleasant cities of the world. While I don't entirely approve of slaves being kept, they're generally well-fed and taken care of, so I don't see a huge issue with it.

The merchant who buys our weapons, for example (curly-haired and overly perfumed like most Lysians), offers me 800 gold for Anya. That is, in fact, quite a large sum of money for a woman I barely even know...but I have a feeling Rha would never forgive me, so I quickly drop the thought. And oh, also because it's wrong of course. Her visions are sometimes helpful too, like the one where she said she saw death, dragons and a gigantic pyre over Lys before we arrived. I could swear there was something else, but I didn't see a need to press her.

On our way into the city, we see that at least one of the rumors we heard in King's Landing are true. The bodies of priests and believers of R'hlor are lined up along the main street, crucified and burned. All of the guards in the city are displaying the banner of the Avengers, i.e. Daemon's. While everything seems peaceful enough on the surface, there's a barely hidden tension running through the city. Lysians are a peaceful lot so I doubt there are riots about to happen though.

Through various sources like the merchant, the innkeeper, soldiers and pleasure girls we pick up some interesting rumors:

• Worshop of R'hlor is banned in the city
• There's an underground resistance fighting against the occupation of the city, led by one Marduk-Nadin-Ahhe. So far they haven't done much besides attack and kill some guards a few times. Support for them seems to be split. 
• If Daemon isn't lead the Avengers himself, there's another scary undead guy who is. "He is death", able to kill with a touch, one of the officers is a ball of nerves from meeting him once and so forth. 
• Daemon threatened to free the slaves if the council didn't acquiesce to his wishes, so they did
• The top army leaders have all been replaced (killed/ran away/tortured/etc) by mercs
• Some of the mercs are getting restless, no action in the last few months
• There's a curfew in effect after dark 

The inn we stay at is one of the better ones, and obviously contains its own stable of pleasure girls and boys. Not entirely surprisingly, Rha darts into the garden before even downing a beer. Priorities. The rest of us take the time to enjoy a good meal before partaking. My condition is luckily under control right now, and I spotted a Summer Islander girl in there that I'm sure will take me to her home and back....

Day 2
At a late breakfast, we discuss our approach, and indeed our goal. Our initial aim was to discover exactly what in the cold hells the Avengers are up to, and how close they are to invading Westeros (if at all). We agree that getting an overview of the city and the number of troops is a good start. Further, this Marduk could be a potential ally as well as a font of information. Getting to him is probably not going to be all too easy though.

After wandering around a bit, we overhear that there's a big tent camp outside the city housing the majority of the Avengers' troops. We decide that Rha and Anya should head out there to get a head count, while the rest of us try to catch up on gossip. After some asking around, I get the name of an inn that supposedly is the place to pick up info in Lys - The Cold Ocean by the docks (obviously).

The Cold Ocean turns out to be kind of inn by the docks you find in most of the cities in the world. Sailors, pirates, prostitutes, innkeepers, serving wenches, rogues, thieves, merchants and more perform the same dance they always do. Drinking, gambling, fighting, fucking and, most important to us, gossiping like old wives. We learn that Volantis was taken by surprise somehow and was taken without a lot of effort. We overhear mercs talking about the several thousands summer islander mercs working for Daemon. The Avengers supposedly aim to take over all the Free Cities. Merchants are flooding to Lys, the prospect of gold and blood like a siren's call. And most importantly, I learn the name of the man who controls the information flow in Lys - Abi Maras.

Marrok and Latrell join me in approaching the good mr Maras, who is seated on a large table upstairs, two Marrok lookalikes though slightly smaller) standing guard besides him.  I make my intention to buy some of Lys' most renowned products clear, The Strangler. One of the deadliest poisons in the world, and also the most expensive. It's partially a means to come in contact with Maras, but I can certainly see several scenarios in which having a dose of the venom might come in handy. Say at a dinner with old man Frey. Or any Frey.

Abi and myself size each other up, and I think we both recognize much of ourselves in the other. We settle into a familiar back and forth banter, checking defenses and weaknesses. Content that a limited trust has been established, I start prying for the info we're after. It helps that Abi is legitimately scared of Daemon, and he's sure he's an actual undead. I share the info we do have on the undead from King's Landing, hoping it will secure his trust in us. It helps - Abi confides that he can put us in contact with Marduk. Obviously everything will be on their terms. It turns out Marduk is the former captain of the guards. He wisely fled when Daemon took the city, dodging his execution.


[Med unnskyldning til Ane for at jeg har tatt meg ekstremt stor grad av kunstnerisk frihet...]

Letter #1 from Seagard 

[Received after sending the last report from King's Landing]
Barrett,
I trust King's Landing is treating you well. Thank you for that extensive report on your activities. I am sure you are entirely needed on this expedition of the most utmost importance, certainly more so than ensuring that our family's many thousand old reign continues. After all, if Westeros burns what does it matter that Seagard has fallen?

Since I'm fairly sure you would claim that my letter did not arrive if I said otherwise, I hereby give my blessing for your expedition to Lys. Godsspeed.


Regards,
Lady Joyeuse of Mallister

PS: Fenton Pyke is dead. It appears Ella is not totally useless, although you could have fooled me. At least she's capable enough to find actual, capable help. A thousand gold should be more than enough to have lowborn ironborn scum (quite redundant, I know) killed after all. Maybe you should consider hiring the gentleman in question?

PPS: we settled on Othell Pebbleton as the new ruler of Erenford. He at least seems capable, charming and all that, despite his lack of lineage and ridiculous name.

Letter #2 from Seagard 

[Sent to Lady Stokeworth's estate a week after we left for Lys]
Dear Barrett,

my father is terribly ill. It's the wasting disease. He didn't say so explicitly, but from the tone in his letter I'm fairly sure he doesn't have long. But can I spend even a few weeks to see him and say goodbye? Of course not, duty prevents it. If I leave now, the Freys will surely seize the chance to reclaim Erenford. So Pebbleton has to be crowned, right now. This is what it means to be a ruler? To coddle up to a gods damned merchant while my father lies dying? I really wish you and Rha were here, Westeros and that scraggly old undead be damned! Damn the Freys, damn Edmure and damn my father for leaving me alone!

- Joy

Letter #3 from Seagard 

[Sent to Lady Stokeworth's estate a week after the previous one]
Dear Barrett,
it is done. Othell Pebbleton is now the ruler of Erenford, which for the moment is about as useful as being king of the outhouse. There's close to nothing left in the land - people, food or money. Luckily lord Pebbleton (Gods, that still galls) is, as the commoners say, absolutely loaded. A few mercenary units, an engineer unit and some support from the rest of us [cav fra Ryger, personal guard fra Keith og cav fra Mallister] and Erenford should be well enough defended that Frey will think twice about invading. Now if we can find that beast Gregor Clegane and purge him from the Riverlands, things might look not entirely horrible.

No word yet from Riverrun. I pray daily to the Mother that my father will recover, but I have little faith. Ironically, the septon has been somewhat of a comfort through all of this. Tragedy and war makes for strange bedfellows.

I do hope you succeed in whatever it is you are attempting to do. We need you all (well, most of you) back if we are to make sure house Mallister stays above the rest. May the Warrior guide your hands and the Stranger ignore you.


Regards,
Lady Joyeuse of Mallister

Lys 

Rha and Anya make their way towards the tent camp. After some dodging through the jungle, killing a few guards (or was that on the way back? I can't quite recall. Doesn't matter), they make their way to the camp. Rha's experienced eye counts around 6-7000 men, all wearing the Blackfyre mark. They stay the night due to the curfew.


Meanwhile, at the inn the rest of us discuss whether we should go visit Marduk or not. The obvious dangers are a concern, but we didn't really expect this quest to be a walk in the park. So me, Rha and Anya volunteer to go. If worst comes to worst, the rest can go back to Westeros with information that is still useful.

Abi smiles faintly when I ask for us to be taken to Marduk, then commands his guards to blindfold us. We will be lead by hand, as the resistance for obvious reasons aren't too keen on divulging their location to potential spies. We will have no weapons or anything to defend ourselves. It seems pretty crazy to go along with this, but on the other hand we have no long-standing feuds, bad family blood and so forth here. I would never, ever do this in Westeros.

We're lead underground, and quickly lose all sense of time and direction. The damp air makes my chest constrict and I instinctively reach for my tincture, then swear as I remember that I left it behind in my bag with Marrok.  After some time walking around, we head upwards and come to a standstill in a room that smells of spices. Abi's guard instructs to wait and to not remove our blindfolds if we value our lives. Since we do, we don't.

After a few tense minutes, we hear the sounds of approaching footsteps. Marduk introduces himself and asks who are, crazy enough to see him as defenseless as newborn babes. We discussed our strategy before going here. We agreed that being (almost) completely honest would probably be the best approach. So we tell him about our experiences with undead in King's Landing, about Bittersteel and the history of the Avengers and who we believe Daemon is. Marduk asks a few pointed questions throughout, but it's clear our strategy's worked - he believes us and a level of trust has been established.

I ask him how Daemon managed to control Lys. As it happens, Marduk was present in the council at the time. Daemon came in as a regular petitioner, his face cloaked, and demanded control of the city or he would slaughter the entire council. His voice sounded like it came from the grave and an icy aura surrounds him. Still, the council obviously refused. Daemon pointed at one of the council members, and he fell to the ground, dead. After that, the council quietly acquiesced to his demands. Small wonder. How do you oppose someone who can kill by just pointing a finger? I suspect there's more to the story than that, but I see his point.

We get a bit more info as well:

• Daemon keeps the families of the council members in a secure place to ensure their cooperation
• The merchant guild has detailed economic information on the Avengers, we can contact one Yihatti
• Daemon's army currently clocks in at roughly 6,000 Avengers in Lys, 5,000 Lysene guards, 5,000 in Volantis and 3,000 summer isle mercs. 
• Daemon employs 3-4 people as his daily operating officers, people with social skills and networks. Niram Lado is one of these and is currently in town. 
• The Avengers have secured a large amount of contracts for transport by ship in roughly 1 year. We're not entirely sure yet if this entails an attack on Westeros or other Free Cities, but I'm guessing we can dig deeper to find out. 

Most importantly though, Marduk informs us that they plan to attack Daemon directly. They have a way into the castle. At first I think that sounds like suicide...but then I think, what a chance to end all of this with a single blow! I'm sure the Avengers could easily be dispersed without his leadership. They would certainly no longer pose any threat towards Westeros! The only downside is that we'd be unsung heroes, and while I have no desire to become some mythic hero, some appreciation is always nice...

We agree to consider the matter, Marduk is open to us joining his attack if we're interested. We depart having laid the groundwork for yet another tenuous friendship and much to think about.