After the brutal executions, the bodies were piled onto several carts, driven far enough away from the city and burnt so that the spread of disease would be minimised.
I gave all the necessary orders for the night. Marius was placed in charge of providing accommodations to the people, as well as the bare minimum of food to the prisoners, little children excluded. Farwan was given command of a few dozen or so able men to patrol the battlements of the newly raised wall- wide enough for two men to walk side by side.
While the men did not complain I could see that their fatigue and lack of sleep due to hours of constant riding, was catching up to them. Their movements were lethargic and their eyes were red and droopy. They made for a pitiful sight and I was not a cruel man who would run them ragged.
I called Marius, Farwan and their appointed underlings before me. "You are tired. I can see it clearly." There were plenty of light protests and some of them even straightened their backs in a comical way to showcase how 'full of vigour' they were. I stopped myself from snorting or smiling too widely.
"No. This would not do." Some faces fell, others grew fearful, perhaps afraid of what I might do to them for this 'failure'. I alleviated their fears by asking Marius to come forward. He did and knelt down on one knee. I lightly placed my hand on his scalp and made it so that any wounds, illnesses, and fatigue disappeared. The ageing man's body regained its previous vigour and muscle, and his teeth no longer rotted from the roots. God, I hated rotting teeth. So disgusting. Sadly, most people in this world had improper dental hygiene. Alas, it came upon me to fix the tooth decay of my people.
When the rest saw Marius become a decade younger and regain his strength, they too, practically vibrated with excitement. "I feel well-rested, Your Excellency… how?" He clenched his hands and patted his chest and belly with wonder. The awe in his eyes was magnified in this moment and as I did this in public, everyone witnessed it. The awe was present in every gaze.
"Always remember, Marius of Pentos, that just as I shall punish beastly men, rebels, and slavers, so too shall I reward those who stand loyally by my side." I watched him nod along to my words as if they were the most sagely advice he had ever heard in his life. Farwan came next, and after him- the eager line of men and women who had been given tasks.
In truth, I simultaneously liked and disliked the adulation. I disliked how, deep down, I felt like Lord Voldemort marking his first batch of Death Eaters. The same troubling pseudo-fanaticism was present- or at least, that's how I pictured it to have been when the bastard first rose to power.
Either way, it was strange to me. Then again, I thought to myself, if I didn't want this kind of loyalty and respect then I shouldn't have placed myself in the boots of a supernatural King. I could've taken Ymir and left these people to their fate, and yet I didn't. All that I had done before and after was necessary to keep these people in line and make the Dothraki too afraid to rebel. This temporary boost to their bodies was also a necessity borne of taking a new city and keeping it.
I could've crafted a few hundred or so living, stone soldiers, whose sheer size would've made even Gregor Clegane gulp. Under their tireless, watchful gazes, we could've slept away this night. Yet, I did not.
Because this was their city too. If they wished to stay here, each of them had to contribute to it, one way or another. It was more beneficial to temporarily cure some of them of fatigue and make them work through the night, than to protect everyone with unkillable stone soldiers. I did not want my people to rely entirely on me, as such people would only become lethargic and lazy. Lazy people were the beginning of the end of any Empire alongside bad governance.
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I picked out a two-storied, stepped pyramid in the centre of the city, built by the hands of slaves, it belonged to a successful Khal. I wanted to rest and sleep off the 'aches' and horrors of the day- mostly the latter. I didn't really need the sleep but a proper roof over my head would be welcome. Ymir followed quietly behind.
Seeing all that gore and gruesome deaths had a peculiar effect on my mind. I knew I was responsible for the death of countless men and women, yet I felt no regrets. To me these bastards were the worst of the worst, they deserved it. Yet the blood and gore, the stench and the sounds their flesh and guts made as they were pierced, refused to leave my mind, like a macabre song stuck in my head.
For a 21st century teen who had never seen someone die before his eyes, seeing nothing but blood, gore, death and other horrors for an entire day took its toll. It was incredibly hypocritical of me, since I was the one who chose to execute them in such a manner and I was the one who chose to twist another human's body into a grotesque. In some cases, I had no choice but to defend myself, but in others…
I chose to let my fury guide my hands, even though I could've just taken off that man's head and be done with it. No, I knew the truth of it, I could not lie to myself. I did it to make a point. I reveled in the power, a wicked part of me wanted to see him suffer, the same part which was delighted at the fear and terror of the people around me.
Was I a bad person? Hardly. Evil? No.
I killed rapists, murderers and slaver scum who would continue to spread suffering if let live. No, the world was better off without certain nations and people.
And so I did not throw up when I reached my room, only sat down on the bed and stared at the stone wall, trying not to let the fucked up images overtake my sanity.
Two warm arms wrapped around my midriff, and an even warmer body pressed itself against my back, its heartbeat pounding. Ymir's loose blonde hair tickled the back of my neck and her warm breath near my collar bone sent a pleasant shiver down my spine.
"Please," she whispered so softly that I nearly thought I'd imagined it. "Don't t- torture yourself." I turned and looked into her earnest grey-blue eyes.
"N- Not for them," her voice was hoarse and halting but I didn't really mind. Ymir was speaking without being spoken to. That was… that was a massive improvement. So I let her speak.
"T- they were like t- the old masters," she gritted out angrily. The image of hundreds of horselords crushed under my war hammer flashed through my mind. "T- they w- would've killed you," she gripped my shirt tightly, as if terrified of the mere possibility, "and taken me in chains… t- to become-"
A vicious anger reared up inside me and I spun around and pinned her to the bed. My sudden move took her and myself by surprise, but my expression did not waver. My face twisted up into a scowl, and I growled, "You will not be a slave to anyone! I promised you this and I will stand by it." Ymir shivered, her eyes glistening with tears. If I wasn't connected to her, I would have thought her to be scared or alarmed by my actions. No, her surface thoughts said otherwise. She was happy, elated and I felt myself calm down, the Red at the edge of my eyes receding.
My muscles lost their tension and I let myself fall down onto the fur bed beside her. Ymir swung a slender leg over my hip and commandeered my left arm, burying her nose into my neck. Huh. How bold of her.
It was now that I realised the inappropriate intimacy of our sleeping arrangement. I was lying down in bed with a girl that should be in middle school and while I myself was not yet eighteen, it still felt kinda taboo.
Ymir must've felt my discomfort, she raised her head, "S- should I sleep on the f- floor?" She asked, hesitantly. Her cheeks were as red as a ripe tomato.
"No." There's no way you're sleeping on the floor, girl. The thought of letting her sleep in another room away from me never occurred to me.
She let her head drop limply on my arm and I let my hand rest on her shoulder. She hummed and her thigh twitched, tightening its hold.
If this was wrong then I didn't know what was right. Or perhaps I did and just didn't care, because being closer to her felt more natural than anything else in this world.
I ignored the insistent call of the mountain and the lake, they could bloody well wait until I was done with some well-earned shut-eye.
With that thought and Ymir's breath warming my neck, I fell asleep.
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I awoke to darkness lit up by pale moonlight from a skylight and Ymir's soft steady breathing. After carefully extricating myself from the sleeping girl, I stood up from the bed.
After entering the room, I had completely forgotten to cleanse the likely lice infested sheets of a Dothraki Khal. The thought that we had slept in the unwashed bed made me shudder in disgust. Ugh.
Well, no time like the present. I closed my eyes and reached out for my power, this time purposefully using it in a way that did not alert Ymir. The poor girl deserved the rest.
A wave of tightly controlled, matter destroying power spread throughout the room. The woven stools, bed, bedsheets, wooden side tables, and fur blankets were cleansed of lice, diseases and bacteria.
Looking back and confirming that Ymir was still asleep, I quietly tip-toed away from the room, only slipping on my boots once in the long hallway.
I walked out through the large, ornate, wooden door and found the entrance guarded by two armed men. From their scars and build, it was apparent that these were pit-fighters of some kind that the Khal had bought off the 'good' masters of Slaver's Bay.
The guards saluted me, "My King."
"I'm off to inspect the walls. If Ymir… my Queen, awakes, let her know where I went," I ordered. Not that she wouldn't know in the first place, but hey, at least these two would feel like their job had some meaning.
With that I walked off. My objective? To clean up the magic gems lying outside the walls. Perhaps inspecting or interacting with these gems would allow me a glimpse into the magical capabilities of the ancients.
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The heavens were in the late stages of twilight by the time I came onto the only entrance into the city. Farwan and his men saw me first and saluted appropriately. I ordered them to stay put and that there was no need to accompany me. They reluctantly agreed. The doors, as if sensing my presence, quietly opened up.
While the ingots and materials were brought back into the city, the jewels were where we had left them. Most were blood red rubies. There was only one fist-sized sapphire down the dusty path, one small emerald and two amethysts.
Each of these gems felt different. They were mostly untouched by the ravages of time or dust and mud but it was the strange buzz and unseen charges hovering around them that made it clear that these were not any ordinary gems. Not only that, but they also felt different from each other.
Since I didn't want to touch them, I reached out with my non-magical powers to prod them. Why not poke them with my magic? Well, that was obvious, wasn't it? I didn't want the gems to either get recharged on my magic or cause a damaging backlash. I simply didn't want to risk it.
After five minutes of poking and prodding the rubies, I figured out what most of these rubies were for. It was incredibly fascinating what the sorcerers who enchanted these gems had accomplished using the weird energy known as magic.
According to the few remaining flashes of memories captured in localised time- a form of psychometry, these rubies were primarily used for two interlinked purposes- absorbing the blood sacrifice of animals and humans and then using that contained energy to heal any wounded individual. Combine in the religious factor and the blood freely given, and it becomes clear why they were stuck onto idols.
The sapphire was, in my opinion, one of the most dangerous ones in the collection. It had multiple purposes- one being to fortify the minds of any warrior that bled on it, while the other enchantment pulled the truth from the tongue of anyone placed before it. It tried its best to reach out for my mind through the probe, but failed each time as the probe did not allow the energy to latch onto it, avoiding it by twisting and elongating the space around it. I was going to inspect this one thoroughly when I had the time.
The emerald, whose purpose was to 'bless' the crop seeds placed before it, was duller than the others, which was strange seeing as it had been lying on mostly fertile ground in the Dothraki Sea. If anything it should've thrived. Hm. I'll have to look into this.
The amethysts were incredibly 'vocal' with their enchantments, which were all about lust, sex, and fertility. Ah, yes humans crafting sex energy gems. Yeah, that checked out. These came from an idol stolen from the banks of the Rhoyne, likely made by the Rhoynar- just like the sapphire. Apparently, the amethysts were not lacking in lust energy, being very near to a city where almost everyone who was of age was fucking out in the open.
Throughout my inspection, I was unable to figure out how to enchant gems or artifacts of my own. Then again, I wasn't probing them with my magic so I was probably missing out on some mystical 'Ureka!'. Hmm, I could, alternatively, try investing some of my internal magic into a sword or a dagger and see how it reacts.
I sighed. Practical experimentation was the next step. If I wanted to understand how magic worked, I had to take the proverbial bull by the horns.
Pulling the earth together, I created a few different materials to test how their magic reacted to them. None of them truly hampered the magical abilities or prevented the energy from leaking out. Iron just barely hampered the energy inside the sapphire, and had a completely opposite effect on the emerald- enhancing its reach by a few inches. The rubies only buzzed in the presence of iron.
Silver on the other hand did not adequately contain any of the gems. Instead, the powers of the amethysts were enhanced when placed in proximity to silver.
I grunted in frustration. I now lamented not taking an interest in listening to those healing crystal weirdos on YouTube. That fluffy knowledge might've proven useful here.
In the end, I chose quartz for its low porosity, and resistance to heat and spills to contain the gems and stop them from coming into contact with water, blood or flesh.
I did not summon an ultra-hard stone or steel as that would be akin to letting magic affect those materials or even worse- mutate them beyond my control. From what I had heard, Mantarys was a city the Khalasars avoided because its people were mutated monsters after the fall of the Freehold- half demon half men. If magic could mutate biological lifeforms, it could possibly do the same to materials. Best let the quartz take the hit.
I crafted eight large quartz lockboxes, one lined with iron to contain the sapphire- each box was large enough to contain each gem's AoE. Then used some nifty telekinesis to place the gems inside. I sealed the box by melding the atoms of the lid with the container and carried them back into the city with telekinesis. Floating eight heavy quartz boxes with TK without looking at them, proved to be an excellent practice.
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The sun was on the cusp of rising by the time I entered the city. The sky was turning a light greyish-blue, and the bats were on their way back to their caves inside the mountain.
Past the gate, I saw Ymir waiting for me. I did not say anything and she did not ask. She fell into step beside me. After placing the lockboxes into our pyramid's basement, I grabbed her hand and led her away.
Time to go and see what this Womb of the World wanted and why the Blue was so insistent on interacting with it.
On the way, I told Ymir what I was planning to do and how she could help. She was to make sure no one disturbed me and to provide any backup in case it all went awry. She nodded solemnly.
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Damian did not see Ymir's face turn bright red or her small, giddy smile. Eavesdropping on those lusty village lasses secretly plotting to ensnare their men of choice, proved to be incredibly useful.
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Author's Note: Sorry for the long delay, ladies and gents. Stuff happened, such is life. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. The next one is also heavily focused on the magical arts and figuring out the link between the Colours and Natural Landscapes.