We are moving through the castle, and when I say we, I mean starchaser, Marwyn, and 10 of my eh... Owlguard? Startrooper? Anyways ten of my constructs, it's been two days since the letter from Stannis arrived. Besides finishing one of the Tyrell paintings, I also built more constructs, not only soldier ones, but I made horses as well; I have been preparing to travel. But I won't be the only one traveling. While I go to Dragonstone, Marwyn will go to Highgarden to deliver one of the two Tyrell paintings. I, of course, will be trusting a lot to Marwyn, especially with what I am about to show him now, so he will be "escorted" by my soldiers that will keep him safe and in line.
"Marwyn, what I will show will be kept with maximum secrecy." I say with a tone that leaves no room for argument," This is the most advanced and complex piece of magic you will ever see in your life. Not the Freehold of Valyria, not even the Empire of Dawn reached this level of mastery over the arcane arts, and if you stay loyal, I might let you study it in depth." That put a gleam in his eyes. He is excited and extremely curious.
We arrive at the front of double heavy and tall wooden doors, and two of my... Paleguard are standing in front of them; as we approach, they open the doors revealing a big room at least 60ft(18m). The only things here are a 10-foot circle drawn on the ground, a painting resting on the wall, and 12 black horses.
"Now that we are here, soldiers mount and take the painting, then enter the circle, Marwyn, with them." As all took the position, the circle started to hum and brighten and brighten until a flash of blue light blinded me.
Slowly the light retracts, and I see a deep green forest around us. The ground is covered by golden leaves of the Weirwood that I enchanted, we are now in the Isle of Faces. I was expecting a portal but ok.
Marwyn is looking around with an open mouth and wide eyes.
"W-where we are, my lord," he asks, taking deep breaths. On the other hand, my constructs look as emotional as a piece of armor can be.
"We are in the Isle of Faces in the Riverlands."
" In only an instant, such distance, unbelievable, it's incredible" He looks at me with reverence," Is it possible to learn this magic, this art?" He asks.
Not from a Jedi, " I don't believe so, this kind of power has been passed from father to son in more ways than one, by teaching and blood, but it could have exceptions, I don't claim to know everything" I know I am not wrong, literal god told me that only my children could be taught how to use this kind of magic, but he doesn't need to know that.
"Then I look forward to proving you wrong, my lord" Sure, mate.
" Well, let's move. There is no reason to disturb the inhabitants of the island."
After that, I used some fallen trees and FABRICATE to make a raft big enough for everyone and the painting to sail to the shore. From there, I used some more trees to make a simple cart We tied two of the horses with some rope to it, Marwyn and my soldiers left with the painting, the first field test for my little constructs.
After their departure, I transformed myself into a hawk and flew to Dragon Stone.
Three days later
As I fly over Dragonstone, it is night now, but I am able to see all of the fortress, and there are a lot more dragon statues than the show showed. That is for sure. I find myself a good window to sneak in, and as soon as I enter, I turn myself into a rat and sneak around the keep.
After some time walking around the keep, I found the ones I want to in the map room. There are three in the room Stannis, the Mannis, his wife that I don't remember the name, and an old maester.
"another failure. Is there any other healer that you may know, Cressen?"
The old man shakes his head" I know many, my Lord, but none close enough, many experienced friends in the Free cities and on the Citadel. There is the sorcerer of the north as well. He is considered by the soldiers of the Greyjoy Rebellion a remarkable healer. We already sent for them, but the time they take to arrive will kill Lady Shireen." said the Master sadly.
The woman weeps loud, and Stannis's face darkens more. Time to make my appearance, I stride to one of the shadows in the room. Only when you try to light an entire room with candles that you really appreciate electrical lights, so many dark spots, And turn back.
" I would not be so sure about that, Maester, I am quite quick with almost everything I do" I speak jovially as I walk out of the shadow. Stannis immediately pulls out his sword. The woman screech, and the maester let a surprised cry.
"Now, now, we are all friends here. I received your message, lord Stannis, and thought I could be of some help in the situation at hand. I am Lord Antares Palestars" I smile as I sit down on one of the chairs.
"How did you get inside the castle," asked Stannis
"Quite easily, but that is really what you should be focusing on now, Lord Stannis?" he narrows his eyes and grits his teeth.
"Can you save her?" the wife asked me.
"I would like to see the patient before saying for sure, but I have confidence in my abilities." I smile at her.
"If you say so, let us not waste more time, Lord Palestar." he sheaths his sword and turns to leave the room. I quickly get up and follow the man. The wife and the Maester follow closely as we wall around the castle. I see a courtyard with a Weirwood tree in its center.
"You are a follower of the old gods, are you not? Lord Palestars." asked the Maester. I looked at him as we walked.
"Indeed, I am. Their faith is quite suitable with my person."
"What good are the gods when they remain silent in the moments we need them most," Stannis says without stopping.
"Maybe you are praying to the wrong gods." it doesn't pause him, but it does make his wife give thought to it by the face she's making, heh fuck you Melisandre.
As we enter the nursery, we hear full blow the crying that we could listen to from the hallways; inside is a wet nurse who, even as the baby's cry echoes around the room, doesn't approach the crib.
"My Lord, My lady, I-" she is interrupted by a short "leave the room" from Stannis, which she does with speed.
"Quite the lungs on this one, huh," I say as I approach the crib and grab the baby in my arms. Ah, immunity to disease.
"My lord, don't touch her," and a "Be careful." I heard the mother and the maester say, but I ignored it. I saw Stannis's eyes widen a bit. That's a w if I've ever seen one.
"Shhh, don't worry, it will all be alright," I slowly cradle the baby. With the other hand, I use SILENT IMAGE to create some puffy stags that ran in circles above the baby's head, that stopped the crying for now, and with the newfound silence in the room, I analyzed the damage.
"it is undoubtedly curable, I will need some time to prepare something to fight off any infection, and I will have to cut it out, but at this stage, no permanent damage will be done."
"Oh my..." The waterworks on the mother start to flow, and Stannis look less tense which is still a lot of tension. The maester sees interested.
"You can use my equipment my lord, is not much but is better than nothing." The Maester offers.
"I will take you on this offer maester, I will also need the strongest alcohol you have in this castle and any honey you may have around, it will help with any infections."
"Honey my lord, why, if you don't bother me asking, I know about using moldy bread and boiling wine to treat the infection but honey is not something I thought would help."
Huh didn't know about that" Well, yes, moldy bread can help with infection but is a specific part of one mold, the rest of it could be dangerous and since we dealing with an infant here i think is better not to try to push our luck, and alcohol will help to sterilize the tools, here's some wisdom, if you boil it will be less effective."
"May I be of some help, it would be of great instruction to observe such a process." He asks
"No, I appreciate the offer though" I smile at him.
"I-but my lord I must ins-" he gets interrupted by Stannis.
"Enough, we don't have time to lose, Lord Palestars start the making of this medicine of yours, I will send for someone to bring all the honey and wine from the kitchen."
The next hour of the night I spent creating with magic the tools that I needed and the Maester did not have, and sometime later I hear a knock on the door, and I open with telekinesis.
"You may enter" I scared-looking girl, wide-eyed and breathing fast at the sight of a door opening by itself,16-something years old, she enters the room with two jars of what I expect is honey and wine.
"Leave it on the table" With quick steps put the basket on the table and turn to leave.
"One question before you go, why so afraid?" she stops and turns to me.
"i-huh... is just the-the Septon told us about... about you" She drops her head.
"I see, well be on your way then" She leaves quickly closing the door behind her, it seems that the faith is spreading tales about me, probably about the Starks and the North as well, good, let the rift grow.
I then start the process of sterilizing all the tools, heating them up with firebolt, and once they cool down bathing them in the wine,seems overkill but is better be in this situation, when I was finished the sun started to rise on the horizon, well time for a surgery.
Outside the room waiting are Stannis, his wife, the Maester, and a servant I guess, with brown eyes, a simple face, Bearded, wearing a blue tunic, and a brown cape the question is why is this guy waiting outside?
"Well, the sooner I start the sooner I finish." little Shireen is obviously passed out, I made sure of it, I take the scalpel I made and it's sharp as sharp can be, I take it to the girl's face and start to cut the "scales" off, using telekinesis I remove the hardened skin and the pus that came with it,and fucking hell there is a lot, the smell is simply Vile and i have been into battlefields and burn people with fireballs.
After the contaminated tissue is gone I pour a very fine layer of honey on the wound, and then Bandaged her, the bandages were also bathed in a solution to fight any infection that tries to attack the fragile little Shireen, I would just cure wounds this but in the future, I want to train others healers and they don't have the magic I have, so let's test this out.
The entire procedure takes what I believe was an hour, the greyscale didn't spread far, and she looks fine for now, with no bad reaction to the treatment, I cleaned everything up then I leave the room to see the anxious faces outside.
"Lord Baratheon, Lady Baratheon the procedure is finished and it was a success, your daughter seems to be stable for now, I will stay with her for the time being, three days from now if her situation doesn't get worse, I will be on my merry way back to my hold," I explain to them.
"I see" A thin smile appears on the stone-faced Stannis, the wife is once again crying with relief, the Maester seems also relieved and the other guy also has a broad smile, he says to Stannis.
"I can't imagine the relief you feeling my lord my lady, but I must say that I am very happy for the little lady."
"Thank you ser Davos we are indeed very happy." The wife said getting her crying under control.
Yooo, Davos, how did I forget about him, he looks so much younger here and he has hair as well.
"If you want to see her now you can." They follow me inside the room.
"My lord Palestars it is safe to touch her?"
"Yes, though I recommend you don't she is recovering and sleeping at moment, and rest is very important for recovery," I explain to the mother" In the meantime lord Stannis I believe we have some discussion to have ."
"Yes, I shall reward you with what you wish for as long is in my power to give." He says in the usual tone.
"You do not need to worry about that my lord, if I saw correctly it is in your power to give quite easily."
Three days later
It's been some kind of awkward three days, the Baratheon were welcoming in their own way but the dinners were quite dreadfully boring not in the food sense, Shirren didn't show signs of worsening which is nice, on the third day I healed completely her would using mass cure wounds, erasing any vestiges of the once terrible disease that plagued the girl.
On another matter, I had some long talks with Stannis's wife which now I know is called Selyse, about faith and the old gods, she is quite gullible, no wonder she was so fervent in her devotion to the fire god, I didn't convert her but she sure is an enchanted tree away from "true enlightenment."
With Stannis, I had to negotiate some things besides the boon I will receive, and that is why we sitting here in his solar.
"Well, lord Baratheon lets not dance around the business your time is precious and so is mine, for my boon I would like a trade between the Palestars and the Baratheon, I will pay to import from you the dragon glass which you have in abundance, I will also like to import sulfur and from your island as well, a big quantity of it, the transportation of them would be your responsibility for now, but as soon as I have my own ships it can be transferred to me if you wish so." It is a simple boon, sure, but I don't need much from him, and he has little that I want, and I have no reason to ask for a lot and antagonize Stannis, is better to have him on my corner, for now.
"I see, it certainly a restrained boon, I see no problems with it as you said i have both dragon glass and sulfur in abundance, for the moment I shall deal with the transportation of the resources."
Now, all I need is some petroleum, I can probably find, lime, and pine in the north, and then my alchemy truly will shine.
The rest of the evening we discussed prices and how long his ships would be necessary, how much to pay.
The price is of course very low, after all, I am buying things that no one really wants but to Stannis that is income anyways.
After signing our agreement I checked one last time Shirren and started my travel back, I thought about making a stop in Kingslanding but why would I do that really, instead I did find a nice spot on Kingswood, there with the use of MOVE EARTH, and PLANT GROWTH I made a nice impenetrable grove, with jagged rock along the earth walls and very dense forest all around, in the center of the grove a circle of teleportation that I made for my convenience, I enter the circle and teleport back to the moat.
My return of course raised some eyebrows but a big advantage of being the lord of the land is that you own no one explanations, I will keep an eye on Marwyn's progress with the glass candle and when he is back at the isle of faces I bring him back here.
In the meantime I will do some work here, I used the first three days making even more horses automata... that's a good way to call them, anyways, these are very basic, with zero decoration, I will give them to the farmers to use as traction animals, and after the first harvest, I will rent them for a low price, that will make them appreciate them and not take them for granted.
The next thing I wanted to do is to walk around the town that is being built, is crazy now that I stopped to think that I didn't set a foot on the town yet, well I need to grow a Godswood, Marwyn let in the middle of the town a nice space where I can erect a Godswood, so I'm combining business with pleasure and going into the town.
As I walk by myself through the city I see the construction effort is going quite fine, the houses are rough in design but they are built to be warm and to last, and there is now a feeling of organization in the sense that they have now determined spaces, where they can build so the streets are straight, the houses are line up and there are fewer alleyways, also thanks to Marwyn initial draft that we are following the majority of the commerce is centralized in one point as is the housing in another, that will make keeping order easier if we receive flux of visitants, people seem quite in high spirits, well when your working to build something for yourself or your family is always a more enticing endeavor, a happy population is always a good thing.
As I arrive at the center of the town where is a nice flat piece of grassland with about 164 ft(50m) of clean space, is good to have a godswood in the town so people do not have to visit the keep all the time for worship and I can turn the castle godswood into a druidic grove without giving everyone a free pass to enter, I cut my hand deeply and from the blood five weirwood seeds form, I plant them in a circle in the center of the Godswood far enough so that they don't obstruct or fuse one with other.
"Milord?" I hear a voice from my side, it's Arren, and farther behind a small crowd is observing us.
"Oh, hello Arren, how are you on this fine day."
"uhh, quite well my lord, do you need any help?"
"Yes in fact I do, you see I plan to turn this fine place into a Godswood, and I already started, five seeds have been planted but I need more, so spread this news, any family that wants to contribute can come here, and plant a seed of a tree inside the limits of this fine grove, they should make a good-wish pray as well." I could do everything by myself but if the people participate their feelings about this place will be even stronger, it will be their place as well.
After said that used MOVE EARTH to create a wall, well more like a tall fence around the place, there are two entrees, in the center I made a huge hole and left it like that, I will fill it later, while I do that Boric is speaking with the People that were gathering, there is a small crowd after all is not every day that I go for a walk, as soon as Boric stop talking the crowd leaves with an exited demeanor.
I let the grove behind, I will return in the night, I can't grow trees in front of people after all, it would be a little suspicious if the Starks found out, so the "old gods" will do it.
There was still a lot of sun to burn so I decided to help in the planting fields, MOVE EARTH again, helping with the prepping of the land to receive the seeds was a lot faster, I helped till the night started to show, there is still a lot of lands to cover, but what I covered will probably feed a good chunk of my smallfolk, I fly back to my keep and await the darkest hour of the night.
I fly back to the grove, and there I see many, many little bumps of turned dirt in the ground, the seeds have been planted, so anyways I started casting, and I decided to use all of the spell slots into the growing of the trees, and oh boy did they grow.
This is a proper grove now with many different trees all around, well I had to trim the vegetation, but now is all just fine, I will enchant the weirwoods and later will have to fill that hole, so I did what I normally do, I cut my hand and spread my blood on the trees, the five weirwood start to change as usual, but also the trees around them, they're once green and brown leaves fell to the ground and around me all are golden yellow trees, still only the five weirwood give that calming aura but is interesting that they can do that to the surrounding flora, with my job here done I fly back to my home and have a nice rest.
The next day I decided to fly to the grove to see the reaction and there was a big crowd, like two or three hundred people, in or around the grove, those around seem to want to enter or just see the grove, they talk to each other and seem excited.
Those inside, on the other hand, are in silence many on their knees in front of the trees, there was many northman between the tralls when they came from the Iron Islands but the majority weren't, to see a small forest sprout out of nowhere sure will make a lot of people rethink they religion, especially if they believe that they now live in the land of the old gods and that not only they are powerful but they can use that power.
In the afternoon I spend creating some blueprints, two Pumps, one for the Wells because I was already on the subject of making pumps anyways, and the other, the important one, is for the ships, the building of the warships and cargo ships is going very well, they are being built in the shores of the bite, three warships and three cargo, I thinking about sending some of my automata to help in the building of the ships, they can't do a very intricate work but they can be the grunts and they don't need to rest so that's great, another for the maybe column.
A week later Marwyn was back on the Isle and I brought him back to the Moat, Tyrell received the first painting and will start to send the food ships, finally, we will stop borrowing food from our neighbors, it was for less than a month and there was a lot of fishing and hunting happening here, but even so, a hundred thousand mouth's to feed was a lot more than I thought.
...
"Welcome back, Maester Marwyn I commend you on this accomplished mission." he bows his head to me, We are once again in the great hall all of my inner circle is here except for Arren that is in the shipyard supervising the ship's construction.
"Well, hello my good people, I hope you are having a wonderful evening, how about we start with reports now and have a dinner without business after, Marwyn?"
"My lord, the Roses were extremely satisfied with the painting of the family, Lady Olena was particularly pleased that you painted her younger than she actually is, even if she was very intrigued by how you knew her appearance at that age," I, of course, took the image out of Mace childhood, the old lady is very Sharp indeed, but it doesn't matter I own no explanation to her and IF I need an excuse all I need to do is tell her oaf of a son described her that way, he for sure will not remember, besides the fact that is not exactly a herculean task for an artist of my caliber to imagine and paint someone in their younger years.
"Anyways, In three weeks' time, the first ship will arrive in the salt spear with the promised food."
"Very good, Boric how are things in town?"
"Well, my lord, certainly energetic, after what happened in the Godswood, the people seem more cheerful, content is a general feeling around, and many like to spend some time in the godswood after the day of work, it soothes one's body and minds more than any drink have ever done, it would be of great interest to have more than one Godswood in town."
Did I create an accidental drug here!?, are people getting high on old gods?
"Besides that, a small number of smallfolk are getting sick, nothing too dangerous, a minor fever, but I thought you should know."
"bring those who are sick to the castles I will judge if the disease could become a problem or not." yeah, I taking no chance of sickness spreading here this soon.
"Mansy, how are things here on the castle"
"Things are being good, milord, the rooms are cleaned as can possible be, the big part of the holes in the castle are already patched, the food stocks are high and our people are high spirited, we are ready to receive any guest will want to receive."
"Excellent, anything else that needs my attention?"
they shake their head and I chorus of "no" follows.
"Well then, let us eat."
The servants put the diverse plates on the table and we dig in.
"Marwyn I have been waiting to ask you, do you know what Petroleum is?"
he looks at me and thinks for a moment.
"Can't say I do, the name is also very foreign to me."
"It looks like black water, similar to pitch but not the same, is naturally occurring and comes from the ground."
"I think I know what you speak of, there is a particular one that comes to mind in Dorne, there is a cave that has a black lake inside."
"anywhere else?" I prefer not to have my supply of it come exclusively from the other side of the continent controlled by someone else, the same with sulfur and obsidian, but I know where I can find more of that or I hope so, Skagos, I just have to get rid of the ones that are living there, but to do that I have to become irreplaceable in the north, so as soon as I start to feed the whole north, the skags will fall in line or die trying.
"I try to find other places like it milord, but will take some time, I can look in the north but is more likely to be found in Essos."
"How much it would cost to import the black water from the Dornish?"
"it will cost a bit because they don't exactly harness it, so it will be necessary to start that, and there is the transportation as well, we still have no ships."
"Any chance of a similar deal to the one I have with Stannis? you know using their ships to transport the product until we have our ships ready?"
"I don't see it happening milord if you fall in the good graces of the Martels perhaps, but unless that happens their ships will be in better used to trade with the Essosi."
what could put me in the good graces of the dornish ruling house? I smile, a gift of course, no, two gifts, I just have to find where they are right now, and I have a way to do that quite easily.
"ah Marwyn, you should know by now, falling in people's good graces is what I do best."