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Link: -https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-song-of-ice-and-fires-that-werent-all-my-fault-asoiaf-dresden-files.336499/
( Our friendly neighborhood wizard along with his daughter is thrown from the top of Chichen Itza into Braavos of the Hundred Isles. That was two years ago, now after struggling out of the gutter Harry is back on his feet and his luck is coming back. )
1,2,3
1.
It was raining in Braavos. It was always raining in Braavos. At one time that had been a selling point. Braavos, the foggy swamp where no fire-breathing flying lizards will kill you and enslave your entire family and force them into volcanic mines! I was reluctant to admit it was a decent pitch. As I walked along the canal trying to step over the puddles that dotted the stone path the amulet I was holding twitched. The movement was a little stronger than the last time, the closer it got to the turn of the tides the stronger my tracking spell got. At the moment they changed I could have found anything, but that one moment of clarity was drowned out by the rest of the day's slow moving water grounding out my spells. I was close though, the item, a shipment of silk stolen off of a quay was on this island. I turned to the slight man who'd been following me as I tramped all over Braavos "We're near. If you want to get any of your buddies, now's the time." The guard of the silk's nominal owner nodded but didn't make a move. "Your boss hired me to find the cargo, aren't you going to get it back?"
"There's no need Dresden." It was the first time the man spoke in half an hour. My old shtick back home of being irritating chatty didn't really fly here, especially when none of my well timed quips and jokes were anything anyone had ever heard of. Well except Maggie but as she was raised in Mexico until she was eight I assumed her pop culture knowledge base was a little less than mine. The short man turned from staring at the canal back to me. "We knew where the silk went from the beginning."
"This was a test." stating the obvious was one conversational gambit that still worked.
"Just so" The slight man began to walk back the way we came. "We were aware of your claims and spoke to some of your previous clients. Your reputation is well founded but it is said that sorcery is a sword without a hilt. We wanted to see if it was true yours was safe to grasp."
"And are you satisfied?" I might have been irritated once at being challenged. Here in this world where I was the only thing keeping my daughter safe I was willing to swallow a lot of my pride.
"Indeed Dresden." He handed me an oiled envelope. "You'll find a draft on our account inside, my employers will contact you for further work if its needed." With that the man resumed his silence as we continued to walk towards the residential part of the city.
"Who are your employers and how will I know them?"
"They are a consortium of trading houses and merchants, anyone from our group will pay half in advance from the same account on the draft you're holding."
"Good enough for me then." Honestly I was relieved, I'd have worked for the local mafia as long as they paid on time. I had kept my abilities limited, people only knew I could find anything in the city as long as they had a part of it. Finding people seemed like a dangerous skill to admit having, helping identify thieves and possible murderers for the city based on their loot was as far as I would go. For Maggie's sake I wouldn't make any enemies. A trading firm was much more palatable though, the Iron Bank wouldn't admit to having an account for criminals, at least until they had enough wealth they could join the upper classes.
Staying useful to everyone and not a threat to anyone was a fine line to walk, thugs had tried to shake me down a few times, one nice thing about the canals everywhere was that I could throw the mooks around a lot harder without worrying about the first law. My coat had saved me from at least one stabbing although I didn't think that had to do with my work and the threat of my little ball of sunshine had prevented any of the local talent from trying anything. After two years of struggle I was finally feeling like things had gone back to the way they were in Chicago, I even had my same ad: "Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, Parties or Other Entertainment"
Past the whole medieval Venice/Holland thing going on the only real change was my family. I'd lost all of my friends in the event that had transported Maggie and I here, but I did see the Red Court die as we left so I was hopeful that they had survived. I worried for them, but having Maggie here made her my first priority beyond finding a way back.
The guard split off as we reached the island I lived on, he had further to go towards the harbor. I could feel the wards on my house as soon as I stepped off the bridge, living with Maggie had given me a threshold immensely stronger than my old burned apartment and I had spared nothing on the defenses. I often wished Bob had come with us just so he could see the work I had done without him. For the first six months I hadn't let Maggie out of my sight but now with the wards, the locks, and the help of the wives and families in the neighborhood I felt confident enough to leave her for part of the day.
Two years in it wasn't as big a shock to see her. She still had Susan's complexion even in the perpetually cool, cloudy and rainy Braavosi weather and she was beginning to look almost coltish from the height she got from me. I could see her with her friends, she had adapted marvelously from her suburban life to being kidnapped by vampires and then thrown into a fantasy world with a man claiming to be her long lost father. She spoke the numerous languages of Braavos with fluency I couldn't match, I had learned some Braavosi but the so called common tongue of the Andals was much closer to English and I used that whenever possible. We had both learned to read, her almost embarrassingly quicker than I but I'd made too many friends in books to be illiterate. "Papa" she cried on seeing me "did you find it?"
I smiled as I shouted back "Of course, that's why you get to hang around all day and have fun while I crawl in the mud!" She laughed, the other fathers on the island told me I was lucky to still be in the stage where I was my daughter's hero. I knew I didn't deserve it but that didn't stop me from loving it.
She ran back towards her friends, they were giggling about something, apparently gossip was universal. I lowered the wards as I walked up to our house, the first room going in was where I met clients, behind that was the start of the house, a two story stone building that backed onto a shared courtyard. It was larger than my apartment had been and while lacking many comforts it was a home. The bedrooms and my lab were upstairs, I had replicated Little Chicago and I had the start of a library. Maggie had recently shown her first signs of magic and I wanted to ensure that all the magic I knew and the laws were preserved in case anything happened to me.
I wasn't too worried. Braavos was a peaceful and strong city, unlike the kingdom across the sea or the other free cities there were no hereditary nobles. In many ways Braavos was the best city to land in. Finding lost items was more lucrative here than in Chicago, I had a healthy amount saved in the Iron Bank and even owned a partial share in a trading cog who's captain owed me for finding his stolen cargo. It wasn't America or the twenty first century, but it was home and had my family. Things certainly could be worse.
2.
My lab was a mess. In Chicago sharing the space with Molly had led to some clutter but nothing like here. I missed my three ring binders full of notes, all of the materials for spells and potions and most of all Bob. I'd say I was a fairly well educated and skilled wizard but compared to Bob's knowledge of the obscure and esoteric I was an apprentice again. Here I had several tables covered in parchment, the notes of all the magic I was trying to preserve for Maggie. The heavy wooden tables were scorched in places, she shared my affinity for fire and brutish magic and I was happier for it. Training her was the opposite of Molly, if I'd given her the beaded bracelet Molly had struggled with she'd have blown it up. Maggie wouldn't have the temptation to mess with her friends' heads though and her talents would allow her to follow in my footsteps as a detective if she wanted. Of course I hoped to be around for a long time coming but planning for the worst never hurt anyone.
The lab overlooked the canal along the long side of the island, Maggie and her friends weren't visible but I wasn't worried, no one would let anything happen here. It had taken a year of constant work but I'd managed to acquire our current home on an island of the upper middle class. There were houses of silversmiths, bankers and the families of ship captains along with extremely visible and regular guard patrols. It was probably the safest part of the city given that the true upper class had an obsession with dueling to the death that the more mercantile citizens disdained. The neighbors were friendly people, I had told them a version of the truth, that Maggie and I were stranded here in the same accident that had killed her mother. They had reacted with an extremely polite lack of curiosity which I was grateful for. Life was good, one of the silversmiths was even collaborating with me on the development of a small printing press. I wasn't in any position to go all Connecticut Yankee on Braavos but I felt I could advance things in some small ways. My GED hadn't focused too much on Medieval Europe but Braavos seemed like it was on the verge of when the Renaissance should show up. If in the future the Dresden-Koren press was lauded as the spur to literacy like Gutenberg I wouldn't complain.
There were other projects I was working on, maintaining my model of Braavos was a constant struggle and I was working on a world map by buying the charts of sailors whenever I saw them. Essos, the continent I lived on, was dominated by the free cities which were founded by or against the fallen dragon empire. There was a massive river, comparable to the Amazon or Mississippi back home into the interior, a vast plain called the Dothraki sea. Mongol like horseman roamed the grasslands occasionally raiding and sacking the cities surrounding it. Braavos was safe from their deprivations though, apparently they feared salt water.
Across the narrow sea was Westeros, the sunset lands. They had just finished a civil war when Maggie and I had arrived, apparently caused by a mad inbred king. It sounded like a feudal dystopia and I was glad we had landed where we were rather than in some Hundred Years wars type struggle.
My main magical project past detective work was enchantment. I had been able to create objects that I could use and power for years but I wanted to make something like a Warden's sword. An object that anyone could use without their own magic. My results after six months of hard work were rudimentary, I finally understood the difficulty Luccio must have had after switching bodies. I'd taken a month to make a rope that couldn't be broken by any load applied but that was the highpoint. I wouldn't be making Durandal anytime soon.
Despite my failures in item creation, finding lost things was my principal source of income and we lived well on it. Maggie had everything she needed and most of what she wanted, while I had enough to play around and try to improve my magic. My reputation was solid in the city, improved by the last job and I felt that my efforts with the smiths would allow me, or possibly Maggie if they were slow, to see the technology of the world we left behind. While I would go back to Chicago if I could Braavos was much better than I'd feared the consequences of the Winter Mantle would be.
Naturally this introspection was ruined by a knock on the door below. Looking out the window I saw a well dressed man who looked deeply uncomfortable on the edge of the canal. Using my carefully honed deductive skills I surmised he was a potential client. I was tempted to ignore him and call it a day but the mercenary instincts honed over a desperate year of taking every job to provide for Maggie stopped me. I hurried down the stairs and went to the front to greet the man.
"Harry Dresden, I am Noho Dimittis. I would like to hire your services." Noho wore the dark colors typical of the somber city and based on his hands worked in an office.
"Come in" I told him, "and have a seat." He did and I moved around to sit at my desk. "So Dimittis, what can I do for you."
He leaned forward "It is said that you can find anything if you are given a small part of it. Is this true?"
"Mostly, there are limits, but if you tell me what you're looking for I'll tell you if I can be of any use."
Noho sat for a moment, seemingly trying to decide if the particulars were worth sharing. Eventually he made up his mind and put a small bag on the desk, "I represent a firm that had a vault plundered, but not completely. The thieves missed these coins."
I reached for the bag glancing up at Noho to see if he minded, he didn't, and I slid the coins out. There was nothing special about them, square iron coins of the type commonly found in Braavos, minted and backed by the ferrous obsessed Iron Bank. I rolled one of the coins between my fingers as I thought, it was something my Dad had taught me when I was young and traveling with him as a stage magician. It was also good therapy for my burned hand which Noho had seemed to have just noticed and was staring at queasily. I saw his discomfort and stopped, I had gotten used to the appearance but it was horrifying on the first glance. It was getting better thanks to the miracle of magic but Noho probably wouldn't appreciate seeing it even in another ten years.
"I may be able to locate the rest of the coins from the vault with these but I make no promises." I looked out at the canal, the water was almost at its highest and the time for a tracking spell that had an incredibly weak link was approaching. I scooped up the bag and stood. "If you wait here for two bells" Braavos used a naval time-keeping scheme as befitted a city founded by sailors, "I'll either have results or I won't be able to help you."
Noho nodded as I began to walk towards the back and the stairs. "If my daughter comes in, tell her I'm working and to find something to stay busy with" I called back as I went up the stairs, if he replied I didn't catch it as I began to focus on the problem.
Coins from a vault were not very similar thaumaturgically speaking. I could certainly use the coin to find other coins that were near but if I tried that blindly Little Braavos would just show me the famous vaults of the Iron Bank where the largest concentration of coins in the city was. Or so I assumed, some merchant prince might have chests full but either way it wouldn't work very well. Instead I had to use the bag of coins, to try to feel out their common past and from that where the rest was. It was a delicate spell and I wasn't altogether sure it would work especially with all of the water in the city. I tied the bag of coins to a lanyard hanging over the city model, washed myself briefly to try to remove any other influences I'd picked up wandering and waited.
The moment the tides changed was detectable, not like sunrise or sunset in their rigid demarcation but a softer feeling, perhaps a drawn out note rather than a percussive pulse. It was that moment I was waiting for, when all of the water in Braavos was still, magically speaking, for my tracking spell. It was coming up, when I felt it I muttered my spell and fed power into the model and the coins. Somewhat to my surprise the bag of coins spun towards an island. I looked at it, trying to think of the area. It was a nice place, more upscale than my island with villas and larger houses. I had even seen a few trees there which were a mark of extreme wealth on the rocky islands. Knowing which island the rest of the coins were on was probably enough, if Noho and I left now we could make there well before sunset and get a more precise location.
I went back to my office, Noho had been reading something from a ledger and making notes and looked up as he saw me. "Good news" I said "I've narrowed it down to one island, if you come with me now we can find the house they're in. That's as far as I'll go though, if you want retrieval you'd better find some other help."
We went out, I grabbed one of the wives watching the children and asked her to keep an eye on Maggie, she agreed. Noho had gotten the attention of a gondolier in the meantime, we boarded it as the man gave my size a dismayed look. Noho was a true Braavosi, other than asking the price if we found the coins he was somber and silent. The only color in the grey city was of its Bravos, young men with nothing better to do than drink and fight for outrageous reasons. They reminded me of the Sidhe courts in a way, minor slights became feuds that turned bloody all behind a polite facade. None were out though, it was still early afternoon and they were all likely sleeping off their hangovers.
We reached the island, Noho paid the man as I focused on the bag of coins. It swayed down along the shoreline and we followed it until we reached a palatial home with a red door. Noho reacted for the first time in our trip showing slight surprise. "Well Dresden your reputation is deserved. It's amusing the thieves stayed here but you could not have known in advance who they were. You'll have your payment and the thanks of the Iron Bank."
I was shocked, I knew that I was becoming well known especially after the little test this morning but this was something else. The Iron Bank was reputed to have toppled kings and ruined princes, it was the driving force of the city and probably owned half of it. It wasn't anywhere near as powerful as some I'd worked for though, so I kept my poker face. "It was a pleasure to assist. I didn't realize you had actually had individual vaults, I thought it was all kept in your ledgers." as I nodded towards his heavy satchel.
"Most are, like your own for instance" he replied. "Some clients prefer more physical proof that their riches are present, this vault belonged to one of them."
"Well keep up the good work then, I hope you recover the rest of the account." Noho handed me a draft, and I managed to grab another boat. Something about pushing someone six and a half feet tall around seemed to make the gondoliers annoyed. As the ride ended I tipped the gasping man, the tide was against us the whole way, and went home a second time. I lit the stove as Maggie came back in laughing, we had dinner, spent an hour playing with fire and meditation, I sent her to bed as I began to set the wards for the night. It had been a good day, two cases two successes and very real proof I was moving up in the world. Naturally the next morning Noho was back at the door with friends.
3.
Neither of the two new faces looked particularly dangerous and as Noho was an office worker, I wasn't too worried about their intentions. I just had no idea what their intentions were, the Iron Bank couldn't be robbed everyday and I doubted they were seeking me out for my incredibly vague awareness of 21st century accounting. Deciding the simplest way to find out what they were up was to ask I did.
Noho introduced his friends, Johannes Bille and Willas Morin, fellow employees of the Iron Bank. Johannes, a corpulent fellow who was about my age started their explanation. "The vault that was stolen from, that you found the remainder of, belonged to a prominent man."
"Belonged?" I asked "Did he lose it or is he dead?"
"The second I'm afraid, just three days ago. His death was what allowed the thieves, his former servants, to succeed. They had a draft he signed and were able to withdraw almost all of his money, leaving only a little to avert suspicion. It was only when the man, Ser Willem Darry, didn't arrive at the bank for a pre-arranged meeting that we were concerned." Johannes had a soft voice incongruous with his bulk. "Normally retrieving the money would be the end of the matter, Ser Darry had no heirs of the body and after dealing with any debts or bequests the account would be closed and the Iron Bank would hold onto the remainder."
"So what's different in this case? I never met the man and other than my involvement in locating the thieves, which you probably could have done given their location, his banking details aren't relevant to me."
"We would like to hire you again" Noho said. "Ser Darry had made an agreement with the bank that we are unable to fulfill ourselves."
"You want me to find something for a dead man?" It seemed a little ridiculous, who's will included quests for lost items?
"Not at all Dresden" the third man, Willas, spoke for the first time, "We want you to find someone for a dead man. Two someones in particular."
"I can't do people, look for a bounty hunter if you're trying to claw back debts owed him." I could of course find a person given something of theirs but it was a dangerous skill. Some people really don't want to be found and I'd prefer not to make enemies based on what I could do.
"You can find what they're carrying though?" Johannes continued "If you had part of something that one of the persons was carrying as long as they held it you could find them?" It was always annoying to realize that just because we were in the dark ages people weren't necessarily stupid. Even wizards got tripped up by that link and a random banker had deduced it.
"I might be able to find them if they're still in the city" I admitted. "But just because I can doesn't mean I will. Who are the people you're looking for and why did Ser Darry want them found?"
The three bankers exchanged looks. Noho looked aggrieved as he explained. "Ser Darry was from Westeros, he fought on the losing side of their little war and fled to Braavos to escape persecution. However he did not come alone, he had the son and daughter of one of his closest friends with him and he set aside his remaining wealth and property for their benefit. The Iron Bank agreed to look after them until the son was old enough to fend for himself and his sister." Noho sat for a moment looking for some reaction from me. The story of the rich exile was interesting but hardly unusual but Noho had looked for recognition of something. I had never heard of Ser Darry but perhaps I should look him up.
"So the thieving servants evicted the children from the house and now they've been wandering Braavos for three days?"
"Just so."
"Alright I'll look for the children, I'm trusting the reputation of your Bank to keep you honest but if I find you've lied the acts of the Bank's keyholders will be the least of your worries." The bankers looked unruffled by my threat, given the stories about the Bank's reprisals that was a good sign for their honesty. "What else should I know about the children, ages, hair colors, oh and their names?"
"The two children both have Lyseni coloring, silver blonde hair, Viserys is eleven and Daenerys is three. They both had sheltered upbringings and I doubt either is prepared to survive on the streets"
I sat back and acted like I was thinking but really I would have found the children for free if they'd asked. Seeing Maggie bound and threatened by monsters had left me with little tolerance for frightened kids. Children grew up faster here but an eleven year old shouldn't be on the streets looking out for his sister. "Alright I'll try. What do you have for me to use?"
Willas pulled a ruby the size of my thumbnail from his pocket. "This was set in a necklace Viserys will never take off. Is it sufficient?" I took the ruby, and hefted it. Selling the rock back home would have brought more money than I earned in five years. It paid to be nobility I guess. "I'll find the necklace and if he's still wearing it I'll find him"
Noho shared another look with his colleagues and then spoke up "Excellent, we will pay five times what we did for the coins, once you have the children bring them to the main office of the bank."
"If you've all told the truth and I find them, I'll bring them in." I was hoping the job would go smoothly, for lost items I charged a percentage of the value, Ser Darry had been rich and the previous day had been more than enough for half a year, the bank must be worried about their aura of infallibility if they were paying this much. The three men left and I saw them board a gondola back towards the city's financial center.
It was a few hours till the tides changed and while the ruby necklace link was stronger than the coins I didn't trust it enough over water. Maggie had finally woken up, she was usually up earlier but her exercises in magic last night had worn her out more than she'd admitted. She humored me by staying in to eat breakfast then ran off to join her friends in their plot to take over the island and the city. Or something.
I went up to my lab and began to consider what I'd need for the job. Braavos was a fairly safe city as they went but all cities have bad spots. Two children out alone for the first time and probably panicked couldn't be trusted to even know where the safe spots were. Slavery was illegal here but I had encountered some in my desperate first year who wouldn't hesitate to take an unattended child. I put on my shield bracelet and grabbed a chain I'd worked on to function something like Elaine's lighting whip. Without a convenient wall socket it was a bit less useful but I was able to dial down the power through it so that it merely hit like a taser. A lot of my more deadly tools I'd relied on in Chicago weren't that useful when all I could fight here were vanilla mortals. After fighting vampires, faeries, ghouls and ancient monsters, humans tended to seem a little squishy. That wasn't to say they couldn't be dangerous, Murphy alone was proof of what a motivated person could do, but I was much more limited in high end power against humans. Unless I wanted to go mad but a little difficulty seemed like a decent tradeoff.
I set the chain in a pile along with my duster and a few of my kinetic rings. I looked at my blasting rod but decided against it, I did take my staff though. It was of the first things I'd made coming here, the one I'd borrowed from Ebenezer didn't make the transition and I'd needed the versatile tool immediately. It was six feet of oak, it lacked the resonance of my old lightening struck staff but after two years I was used to it. I'd recently bought two pieces of a bone white wood that felt much more attuned to me but they weren't ready, I was teaching Maggie step by step how to make her own staff so I was limited to the speed of a ten year old. My current staff was good enough for today's work though so I laid it down with the rest of my gear.
I had time until the tidal shift came so I did what I usually did in my downtime, writing notes about magic and the world we came from. It was strange to think that almost all of the important magic I'd learned came from my grandfather and now to my daughter. I would have liked to talk with Ebenezer about why he never told me except that I understood. Keeping secrets kept me safe and I would probably have done the same thing in his place. I would have liked to learn more about my mother though, it seemed everyone knew her and I'd like to have more than Thomas's memories about Maggie's namesake.
As time passed I began to think more about the case. I'd have one shot to locate the island the necklace, and hopefully Viserys, were on. People were a little different from coins or crates of silk in that they could move themselves. It could take an hour to get to where they were if I was unlucky, in that time they could have traveled just as far. I'd just have to hope I'd close in on them so that I could find them even with their head start.
Most of the morning passed, Maggie had come in and banged around in her room for a little then went out again as it was about time for her lessons. There was a tutor who came around from island to island for the children of the middle class and they attended as a group, learning the four Rs of Braavos; reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic and rhetoric. The joke lost something here as neither the common tongue of Westeros or any of the Valyrian dialects even had a letter R but as I taught Maggie in English she had politely laughed at the joke.
I left a note for her, so when she got home she'd know what I was up to and having killed enough time performed my tracking spell. Little Braavos had benefitted from my experience with Little Chicago and took the power in smoothly. The ruby moved towards the edge of the city, near the wharves where the ships were berthed. I swore, it wasn't the worst part but it was close by. Sailors on land always craved certain things and just like back home the red light district was conveniently adjacent along with its accompanying criminal ecosystem.
I put on my gear, grabbed a gondola, for once the tide was in my favor and I tipped the man as we reached my destination after half an hour of travel. Holding the ruby, concealed in a drawstring bag, up I pushed a little power into and felt for the link. Improbably it worked, the necklace was on the island. The ruby led me into a maze of yards and warehouses, goods were transhipped here and temporarily stored. I emerged back onto the shore on the bay side of the island and the necklace felt close. Regrettably the pull was headed towards what looked like a bunch of pawn shops. For a necklace he never took off it hadn't last very long.
I went into the shop with the strongest tug, the door opening rang a bell and it seemed so normal that I almost forgot I wasn't in Chicago. The proprietor, a average looking man except for some scars on his arms that made it seem like his life hadn't always been too ordinary stirred. "Can I help you?" he asked as I walked towards him. I was wearing a black leather coat and carrying a six foot staff after having to duck to get through the door but his voice was calm. "I hope so, I'm looking for a necklace."
He gestured towards a table off to the side, it was covered in jewelry but most looked fake and certainly none was missing the ruby I held. "The necklace I'm looking for has a bit more character" I drawled, "Isn't there a place where you keep the better stuff?"
The pawnbroker smiled "I'm not entirely sure what you mean, my entire stock is visible there." The smile didn't reach his eyes and one of his hands was below the counter.
I shook my left hand to free up my shield bracelet, I didn't think the situation wasn't salvageable but a nervous gesture that would protect me from whatever he had over there was a move born from painful experience. "I'm looking for a golden necklace that you acquired in the last three days. It's missing a gem in its setting and I'd like to know how you got it."
The man who I was relabeling from a pawn to a fence didn't change his expression. "I've told you, I don't know what you're talking about." This was where I missed my reputation back home. In Chicago I was thought to be a hitman for Marcone on the mundane side and two steps from declaring myself the Dark Lord Dresden on the other. Needless to say most people answered my questions, hoping to get me out of their lives and flammable buildings as quickly as possible. Here I was known mostly to businesses who wanted to recover lost items, it wasn't quite the same vibe and I was sure the fence had never heard of me. Oh well, a few threats and perhaps some violence would serve to start the stories again. I took a step towards the fence, I still hadn't gotten his name mainly because I didn't want to introduce myself either, lifted my staff and with a minor effort caused the runes carved on it to burn with an actinic glare.
He nearly wet himself. "Please don't" he cried, I heard whatever he had been holding fall to the floor as he pressed himself against the back wall. It wasn't quite the most satisfying reaction I'd ever gotten but it was up there. "The necklace is in the back, I got it yesterday from two boys!" Well maybe Viserys hadn't sold it, unfortunately that meant he'd been robbed at the very least, finding the two children was even more urgent now.
"Where can I find the thieves?" I growled, as long as the man was terrified I might as well try to get all I could.
"They'll be here in the afternoon with whatever they got today, please have mercy they're just pickpockets, they've never killed anyone!" There was a difference between feeling like Batman and tormenting a guy so I stepped back and extinguished my staff. He was still staring at it in fascination even without the light show.
"We're going to wait here for them and then they're going to tell me everything they know."