The ship docked back into the town, just as I had ordered, and the raiders began releasing all the thralls they had captured along with everything they had looted from the town under my watchful eye.
I saw Fenrir running towards me on the port, and he seemed to have dealt with all of the strays that were left behind in the town.
As I watched the terrified faces of the little children and women running from the ship, any guilt I might have felt about what I was going to do to these scum dissipated.
After making sure that only the Ironborn remained on the ship, Fenrir boarded it, and I instructed them to set sail. The moment they saw Fenrir, they obeyed all my instructions without complaint.
Once we were out in the open sea, it was time to start. I ordered everyone on the ship to gather, and there were about twenty men present.
From what I had seen so far, they only needed about five men to sail the ship, so that was the number I needed to keep alive.
I sent out a wave of melatonin to make them pass out, so that I could work on them one at a time without the rest jumping overboard once they saw what I was doing.
I picked one at random and started my experiments. I began the same process that I had figured out from the bear, but now I was doing it the other way around. I created the pathways first slowly and added the heart towards the end.
It still ended badly in my first few attempts. The first ten people died until I finally got the hang of it a few days later. It took a lot of trial and error before I finally felt confident enough in the process to stop. By the last person, I was confident enough to try it on myself, but I held off from that until we were on more stable ground.
I woke up the last person I had tried the process on to see some results and made sure to alter his brain enough that he wouldn't try anything funny and only obeyed my commands.
He only had the magic circulating through him, so he couldn't really do anything too complicated with it, just release it in bursts to cause some damage or move faster.
So it was finally time for some simple tests.
"Jump," I commanded.
He bent his legs and with a burst of energy, he jumped about 20 feet in the air, leaving dents and splinters on the ship's deck.
I couldn't follow him with my eyes due to the glare of the sun, but a few seconds later, he landed back on the ship in a shower of splinters. I covered my eyes out of instinct and looked at the place he had landed, finding a hole instead.
I peered into the hole and saw him lying in the lower section of the boat, his legs broken in multiple places.
It was clear that something had gone wrong.
As I healed his legs, I examined what had happened. It seemed that he had exhausted all his magic into the jump, and even though he was slowly regenerating magic, it wasn't enough to reinforce his legs for landing. Or perhaps he hadn't even attempted to reinforce them since I had only given him the command to jump.
Either way, it was time for more tests.
It took him a few minutes to regenerate all his magic, and I had a fun time watching his glowing arm punch everything I could find while Fenrir tried to fetch the biggest pieces he could find.
Finally, a few hours later, I stopped after running out of things to destroy and almost breaking the ship's mast with a misfire.
It was time to do one last test.
"Gather all the magic above your palm," I ordered him.
However, he kept gathering it inside his palms instead of outside, like I wanted him to.
After a few tries to make him follow the command properly, I got fed up and grabbed his head to directly control his body.
He raised his hand and channeled all the magic he was producing into a red, swirling mass of power and destruction..
I took my time to ensure that he channeled every last drop of the magic he was producing into the glowing orb, which now had taken on a deep crimson hue.
Finally, as I felt my test subject's magic pathways beginning to wither and burn, and his heart beating so fast that I feared it was on the verge of exploding, I released the orb into the sea.
The orb hit the water with a thunderous impact, causing a shockwave so powerful that it rocked the ship violently, throwing me off balance. I struggled to keep my footing, desperately clinging to the railing and my test subject to avoid us both being thrown overboard.
For a few moments, all I could see was a blinding light and all I could hear was the deafening roar of the explosion. But as my vision cleared, I saw the aftermath - a massive column of water rising up into the air, and a ring of large waves radiating outwards in all directions.
The ship continued to rock back and forth as the waves reached us, and it took all my strength to maintain my grip on the railing. The violent motion of the ship made it feel like we were being tossed around like a toy in the jaws of a giant sea monster.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the ripples began to die out, and the ship gradually steadied itself. I took a deep breath, relieved that the worst was over, and slowly stood up straight once again.
Looking around, I saw Fenrir completely drenched and looking at me with an annoyed expression.
"Test success?" I asked tentatively.
Fenrir looked even more annoyed and came up to me, and started shaking himself dry.
"Stop, stop, I'm sorry!" I exclaimed, trying to dodge the flying water droplets.
After that exciting chain of events I decided to clean up the ship a bit and get rid of the pirates who survived my experiments and made sure they were very dead by literally melting them into biomass and chucking them out into the sea.
I didn't want any half-dead magic experiment to come back and bite me in the ass at a later date.
Then I woke up the five pirates who I hadn't used in the experiments who were surprisingly still on board after all the chaos I had created. They woke up confused and drowsy.
"Sail this ship to the nearest shore," I commanded.
It took them a few moments to comprehend me, and a few more to remember the events before they had fallen asleep. They quickly got to work, not even questioning the absence of the rest of the crew or the poor state of the ship.
Observing the crew as they get to work, I take the opportunity to rest on the ship. However, after a few minutes of peace and quiet, I notice the crew whispering to each other.
I take a deep breath and sit up, observing the crew as they continue to whisper among themselves. If they were planning something foolish, I was ready to put a stop to it.
However, life had other plans in store for me. One of the crew members approached me, looking hesitant.
"What is it?" I ask, my annoyance evident in my tone.
"Well, ser, it's just that we can't navigate without being near any shores, and we've been asleep for a few days. We don't know which direction we've drifted in," the crew member explains.
I realize that this is probably my fault, as I've never been on a ship before, and I don't think compasses exist in this world.
Realizing the gravity of the situation, I know that I have to solve this problem before we drift off into the middle of the sea.
"I see. I'll take care of it," I reply.
Creating a few birds out of the biomass I have stored on myself, I have them fly off in different directions, hoping to get a sense of where we are. The crew looks on in awe and fear, but I ignore them, focusing on the task at hand.
"Make sure the ship is in a condition to sail. I'll give you the directions as soon as the birds come back," I instructed the crew, who quickly got to work preparing the ship.
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Olenna Tyrell had lived a long life, having witnessed the fall and rise of a dynasty, and surviving through three wars. She had clawed her way to positions of power and now ruled the Reach in all but name. She had been playing the great game ever since she had learned about it, and she was now one of the most important players in it.
However, over the past few years, some of her plans had been derailed by an unexpected variable - the North had gained the allegiance of a magic healer. That alone would not have been a problem, but the discovery of glass-making in the North had led to lower demand for food from the Reach. Although the drop was not significant at the moment, it was slowly rising, and it would eventually cause problems for her house.
She would have laughed at all the rumors she had heard about the mage during his brief stay at King's Landing, if not for the fact that all her spies were reporting the same story. This was no longer a problem she could ignore. She was going to have to find a way to make a deal with the mage and also the Starks.
While she briefly thought of finding a way to get rid of the mage, she highly doubted that was a possible avenue. The mage had been hiding his abilities for years, and his blatant use of them in the capital meant only one thing - he did not need to hide anymore. Her usual means of getting rid of people would not work on someone who had even half the healing abilities that she had heard about.
She could invite the Mage to the Reach to heal Willas, but she doubted he would come based on how quickly he returned to the North. She could send Willas with an escort; he had a good head on his shoulders, and she could teach him all he needed to know before he left. He was smart enough to think on his feet and not do anything stupid if anything unexpected happened. Maybe she could send Margaery too, hopefully to entice the Mage.
If she could do that, the Mage would be a better match for her than any prince, especially if his children could inherit his powers.