Mist of Shadows
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Dragon King Part 8
🕑 Added 2021-03-23 07:16:24 +0000 UTCMyst glanced away from where Lyanna and Laurena were sparring when he heard the door to the tower open and focused on his silver haired grandmother and seven year old uncle as they walked out of the tower with Barristan Selmy. 'Hopefully this doesn't explode in my face. I don't want to have to kill him on the off chance that he ends up halfway reasonable but he's unstable enough that he'd make a horrible king.' He smiled at his grandmother. "Welcome back to King's Landing."
"Thank you," Rhaella Targaryen replied with a smile. "It's good to see you alive."
He almost lost his smile when he noticed the look on Viserys' face. 'You need a better poker face Viserys, you look like someone kicked your cat,' he thought as he looked over his grandmother's stats, glad that she seemed in reasonable health considering recent events.
"I should be king," Viserys blurted out, not giving the display of combat prowess or the gathered knights a second glance.
Rhaella looked at her son. "Myst is Rhaegar's eldest son."
"I'm older," Viserys pointed out.
"By a year and a half. He's also the one that beat the Mountain that Rides, sent the Lannisters on their way and ended the war," Rhaella explained, rather impressed that he'd turned things around for their family, and well aware of the trouble her brother had caused.
"He doesn't even have purple eyes or silver hair," Viserys complained.
"I'm fairly happy with my eyes," Myst replied with a shrug. "Besides, I can stick my hand in a torch without burning myself. I think that's a bit more impressive."
Viserys stared at Myst for a couple of seconds before shaking his head. "You're lying, prove it."
'I'd rather not but at least Varys isn't here and it's probably the best way to get the shit to behave himself until after the coronation.' Myst glanced at where Eddard was watching his sister spar then poured mana into improving his minor pyromancy talent that let him breathe fire into full blown pyrokinesis. 'Just keep it small, hopefully he won't freak out.' He held out his hand and conjured a ball of fire in his hand. "You were saying?" he asked, ignoring the stares the knights were giving him.
"How?" Viserys sputtered as he stared at the ball of flames.
"Magic," Rhaella said in surprise and delight. "Our bloodline used to have it but it faded with our dragons."
Myst changed the ball of fire into a tiny dragon made out of flames then let it vanish after a couple of seconds. "I'm not sure if the talent faded or if magic faded enough that we couldn't use it. It's not like our family were known as magic users, just dragon riders."
"Teach me!" Viserys demanded.
Myst checked Viserys' stats with his upgrade ability, more than a little relieved that the annoying child didn't have an appreciable amount of magic. "Tell you what, I'll take a look through the books I have after the coronation and see what I can find once I'm less busy."
Rhaella nodded. "I wouldn't mind learning as well when you have time."
"I should have time in a couple of days, assuming the kingdom doesn't start falling apart," Myst replied as Lyanna and Laurena walked over. "Having fun?"
"More than I've had in a while," Lyanna replied with a smile that lit up her entire face. "She's exceptional."
"She has talent," Laurena said, recognizing the other girl's drive and natural ability.
Rhaella glanced at Gerold then focused on Myst. "We should probably discuss replacing the missing members of the kingsguard at some point."
"It's on the list," Myst admitted, not particularly worried about being down a few members as he wasn't particularly worried about assassins but knowing he'd have to fill the slots at some point.
"Why did you let Jamie Lannister live?" Viserys blurted, unable to hold his tongue anymore.
Myst turned to look at Viserys. "You mean beyond the fact that his father has a large army filled with murderers? He saved the city from being burned."
"What do you mean?!" Viserys demanded. "He killed my father!"
"Your father lost his fucking mind when he decided to kill the closest thing the north has to a king," Myst replied, easily catching Viserys' wrist when he swung at him.
"You're lying," Viserys snapped.
"He's not," Rhaella said, cutting in before Viserys could do something else stupid.
"The Starks rule the north," Myst pointed out coldly. "We merely keep the peace with the rest of the lords and keep the fucking game of thrones confined to the south. As for Jamie Lannister, he might have broken his oath as a kingsguard but he did it to save the city."
"He still broke his oath," Gerold argued.
"Which is why he's no longer a member of the kingsguard," Myst replied. "Two birds one stone, he's gone and his father is happy enough that he left. I'd love to take Tywin to task for his troops looting the city but the simple fact is I can't."
"You're going to be king," Viserys pointed out, not particularly happy about the fact that his nephew was going to get the crown but realizing that he couldn't change it, at least until he learned to use magic or saved up enough gold to have him assassinated.
"Kings aren't immortal, they can die like anyone else. I'm not a coward but I'm not going to fight a battle I can't win unless not fighting it is worse," Myst explained, not seeing a point in mentioning that someone would have a hell of a time actually killing him thanks to his durability and health points.
"So he just gets to get away with it?" Lyanna asked.
"I wouldn't say that, I fined him as much as I thought I could get away with and sent him on his way. I'll never sign a marriage deal with his family and I'm fairly sure that Lannisport will be the first…" he trailed off as Varys hurried into the courtyard holding a message. "Something the matter?"
"I just got a raven, Lannisport has been attacked by the Ironborn," Varys said as he hurried over.
Myst rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. "I was hoping we'd have more time to get everything settled before they decided to revolt."
Rhaella glanced at Eddard. "We'll need to move the coronation up and send the fleet."
Eddard nodded. "I need to send some ravens of my own, I doubt Lannisport was their only target."
"Probably not," Myst agreed, knowing the Ironborn weren't going to stop unless someone kicked their teeth in. 'So much for being lucky, then again the war will distract everyone and no one is going to care if we rush the coronation. It also gives me an excuse to move the ships so they're not wrecked by the storm coming in eight or nine months.' He turned to look at Gerold. "We should send a message to Walden Frey to take his forces to help."
"He's unreliable at best," Gerold pointed out.
"Two birds, one stone," Myst replied. "If he doesn't help, we'll hold him accountable or Tywin will, make sure you send a message to Tywin letting him know and let Lord Frey know that you sent it to Tywin, that should keep him more honest. It should help tie up the Ironborn until more reliable people can deal with them."
"Let's head to the map room," Rhaella suggested.
"Sounds good," Myst agreed, wanting a better idea of the location and the distances involved.
0o0o0
"How are you doing?" Hermione asked when Myst walked into the workshop looking worn out and tense.
"Take the good with the bad, right?" Myst replied as he glanced over at where Dawn was working on a pair of vaguely steampunk goggles. "I just finished signing two dozen orders that will get a decent number of people killed but hey, I saved 15% on my car insurance and my gacha dropped a fountain pen with endless ink."
Hermione stared at Myst, not sure why car insurance was relevant. "15% on car insurance?"
Dawn snorted. "That was horrible."
"Sorry, I'm at the point where if I don't laugh or at least try, I'm just going to snap and fly over to the Iron Islands and burn them to the ground with dragon fire," Myst admitted, only half joking about snapping.
"That seems a bit unreasonable but destroying their ships is probably reasonable or at least sneaking on board and stealing everything before stabbing all of the crew for being pirates," Zara pointed out.
Hermione turned to look at her fellow mage. "Are you sure you're a hero?"
Zara shrugged. "Dealing with pirates is heroic."
Dawn turned to look at Hermione. "Considering the Ironborn have a tradition of kidnapping women and raping them until they basically give up, killing their priests and destroying their culture is a good start."
Myst nodded. "If they want to claim the right to the iron price, which is loot taken by force, I'm going to send dragons to destroy any ship that leaves the islands. They've been allowed to fester for centuries because no one else wanted the islands. If they're going to be that screwed up, I can find people to take over and work the iron mines."
Hermione glanced between Dawn and Myst. "Destroying their ability to trade seems a bit drastic."
"They just sacked a capital city because they thought they could get away with it, they're not exactly real bright or overly concerned with people's rights," Dawn pointed out.
"I'll get you a book on their history, every time they get someone reasonable in charge, some drowned priest comes along and screws things up or there's a revolt and some asshole ends up back in charge," Myst said, fairly sure he could find at least one book about the Ironborn that would get her onboard with pruning their culture with a flamethrower or at least getting rid of most of the crap. "They knew the law of the land, they knew that looting a capital city would cause a war and yet they did it anyway."
"How many of the Ironborn had a choice? Refusing to follow the orders of their lords would have gotten them killed," Hermione pointed out.
"That's a fair point but it doesn't really change anything," Myst replied, less than happy about his lack of options. "Unless we can figure out a way to reliably detect lies, we're going to have to kill most of the raiders. If we figure out how to detect lies we can stick everyone we capture on trial. We can send anyone that is halfway redeemable to the Wall and kill the rest."
Hermione stared at Myst in disbelief. "You're still talking about killing thousands of people."
"Let's ignore that most of the people we'd be executing are rapists for a second and look at the practical side of things. We don't have the economy or supplies to support tossing people in prison for any length of time, not in general and certainly not in that quantity," Myst pointed out.
"Selling them into slavery is against the law and killing them is kinder considering the countries in Essos that practice slavery," Dawn said, remembering Daenerys' issues with the various city states in the show. "Cutting off a bunch of hands means you've just saddled the survivors with a bunch of cripples though I guess lashing some of them half to death is an option."
"That's barbaric," Hermione complained.
"Which leaves me with a rather small list of viable options. I have to thread the needle between effective and too harsh because the kingdom is on a knife's edge, too many wrong choices and the various lords decide that they've had enough of Targaryens and the kingdom fractures. If that happens, hundreds of thousands of people will die as the kingdom tears itself apart. So, yeah, I'm willing to execute a couple of thousand rapists if it means that innocent people don't get drafted and killed by the legion so one of the various lords can get a blood soaked crown."
"There has to be a better way," Hermione grumbled, not sure how to solve the problem.
"If you come up with something let me know," Myst replied as he looked at the small golden rabbit that Hermione was working on polishing. "What's with the rabbit?"
"It's a golden hair, when it's done it should passively boost the holder's movement speed and the active effect boosts your movement speed by 30%, removes snares and makes you immune to snare effects for six seconds," Hermione explained, happy to leave the previous subject alone until she could do some research.
"Which I should be able to upgrade into something we can just pass around a couple of times a year, assuming the boost doesn't just vanish when you hand over the trinket," Myst mused.
Hermione shook her head. "That's generally a game thing but it takes a bit of practice getting used to moving faster which means you probably don't want to go completely overboard."
"It's certainly worth testing," Dawn said as she finished tweaking her goggles. "Do you want to check these for me to make sure they aren't going to explode?"
"Sure," Myst replied as he focused on her goggles and checked them with his upgrade ability. "Nice, they have an armor rating and they passively boost magic and stamina. The zoom feature is a bit temperamental but it shouldn't cause anything to explode. Worst case, it will flicker between the viewing options or go out of focus when you try to activate the far viewing function. Do you want me to fix it?"
"Give me a second," Dawn said as she started checking the various connections and wires, wishing she had some modern plastic covered wires or at least better methods of insulating everything.
"Sure," Myst replied as he opened his gacha menu and looked at the choices while he waited. 'Fantasy metal, jewelry, plants, bottles, trinkets and useless magical items?' He bought all of the wheels as none of them were particularly expensive then looked at the next batch. "Damn, some of these wheels are expensive."
"How much?" Hermione asked.
"One hundred thousand mana for a magical paddle wheel, two hundred thousand for an apple wheel, ninety nine thousand for a skill book wheel and over nine thousand for a trinket wheel which is sort of impressive as most wheels aren't even close," Myst said as he bought all of the wheels, including the cheap magical bowl wheel.
"A hundred thousand mana for a magical paddle?" Hermione asked skeptically.
"Apparently," Myst replied as he reached up and caught a bronze talon that was wicked sharp from the fantasy metal wheel. "Celestial bronze," he set the talon on the table then caught a celtic silver bracelet from his jewelry wheel. He checked the bracelet then set it on the table next to Hermione once he figured out what it was enchanted with. "It gives your arm an armor rating which means we'll need to duplicate it."
"I'll take a look as soon as I finish the gold rabbit," Hermione promised. "The sooner we can get everyone a decent set of magical armor, the better."
Zara nodded. "Between a decent pair of boots, copies of Dawn's goggles, the magical clothing and two bracelets each, we should have everything covered."
"That's assuming I can duplicate them," Hermione pointed out.
"I'd be surprised if you can't, considering they don't look particularly impressive," Myst replied as he caught a small white tree with red leaves in a terracotta pot when it dropped from his plants wheel, suddenly glad that he had supernatural strength. "Weirwood sapling, that's useful.' He stuck it in his ring's storage after checking to make sure it was actually weirwood then grabbed a fist size glass gear that dropped from his useless magical items wheel. "Weird."
Dawn frowned as she looked at the glass gear. "Why would someone make a glass gear?"
"No idea," Myst replied, nearly dropping it when it spun an eighth of a turn. He checked his upgrade ability. "I'm guessing the enchanter was drunk or maybe he was planning on enchanting it with durability and hadn't gotten around to it. It has a 12.4% chance each minute to spin an eight of a rotation."
"That's decently useless but potentially world changing if I can duplicate it and if you can upgrade it to spin constantly and improve the durability. You'd just have to pull a lever and the gears start spinning, free power on demand," Dawn said cheerfully.
"It's certainly worth playing with," Myst replied as he spent mana to boost the gear's durability so it wouldn't break if they smashed it repeatedly with a hammer or much of anything then set it on the table near Dawn. "I fixed the durability, I'll fix the spinning bit after you figure out how to duplicate it."
"Thanks," Dawn replied with a smile. "Also check the goggles again."
"Same thing," Myst replied after checking her goggles. "It might be an issue with the material." He reached up and caught a carved crystal bottle with a crystal stopper that was filled with glowing red sand. He checked the dust. "Dust of levitation, sprinkling it on things will cause them to float five feet above the ground for ten minutes."
"I can think of some uses, especially if you upgrade the duration," Dawn said thoughtfully as Myst put the crystal vial in his ring's storage. "Everything from floating platforms to floating houses."
"I can probably upgrade the amount in the bottle," Myst mused as he caught a crystal that dropped when his trinket wheel slowed to a stop. "Just as well we're immune to fire, it's hot."
"What does it do?" Hermione asked.
"It's always 100 degrees," Myst replied as he quickly stuck the crystal in his ring's storage so he could catch the magical paddle. He absently read the words carved into the face of the wooden paddle as he checked the paddle's stats, "Board of Education!"
Dawn laughed. "I'm fairly sure your powers are trying to get you killed."
"You're not actually planning on using that are you?" Hermione asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Relax, you're not supposed to actually hit people with it," Myst replied with amusement.
"You're not?" Dawn asked.
"Nah, you hang it on the wall in your classroom and the learning rate for the entire class increases by 200%..." he trailed off as he noticed the other ability. "Okay, technically if you hit them on the ass it gives them a focus ability for five minutes which improves their learning rate and their ability to retain anything they learn by an additional 50% or 2000% if they're female and naked."
Dawn shook her head. "You're just making up that last part."
"Feel free to check it yourself," Myst replied with amusement as he handed the paddle to Dawn and caught the silvery apple that dropped from his magical trinket wheel. He glanced at the tag on the apple suspiciously. "One genuine apple of immortality."
"Twenty says it's not," Dawn said as she examined the magic on the paddle.
"I'm not taking that bet," Hermione said as Myst reached up and caught a delicious looking red and green apple.
Myst snorted. "It's technically immortal, it's just nearly useless because you can't actually eat it or even damage it."
"Nearly useless?" Hermione asked, noticing his grin.
"Sticking it on a desk twists chance so your students have more productive and generally better days so they can focus on learning, they're also more likely to behave."
"Mind control?" Hermione asked warily.
"No, more like a potion of luck or blessing where things work out by chance," Myst replied as he stuck the apple in his ring's storage and looked at the other apple. "On the other hand, the red and green apple changes anyone that eats it into a nymph which gives them immortality or at least agelessness."
"Any side effects?" Hermione asked, figuring there had to be a catch.
"I'm not seeing anything beyond the fact that nymphs are female, attractive as hell and have weird hair colors," Myst replied as he looked at the racial 'template' the apple provided.
Dawn glanced at Hermione then looked at Myst. "Who are you going to give the apple to?"
"I was thinking about my grandmother unless either of you want it," Myst offered as he held the apple out. "I just want the seeds so I can grow more trees."
"What if you can't grow more trees?" Hermione asked.
"I'm not really worried about it," Myst replied with a grin. "I should be able to copy the youth power from the person I give the apple to which would give me immortality without getting turned into a girl and the ability to hand out immortality. If that doesn't work, we can probably figure out how to duplicate the necklace which should keep us from aging."
Hermione glanced at Dawn then looked back at Myst after she nodded. "In that case, you might as well give it to your grandmother if she wants it."
"Cool." Myst put the apple in his ring's storage then reached out and caught a book from his skill book wheel.
Hermione read the title of the book. "Creating Resource Nodes 101?"
Myst stared at the book title in shock for a couple of seconds before he opened the book, causing it to vanish in a puff of smoke. He opened his HUD and looked at his new skill, curious about the details. "It lets me make resource nodes like in video games."
"Seriously?" Dawn asked in disbelief.
"Yep," Myst replied smugly. "I just need a sample of the material I want someone to be able to harvest and a metric ton of mana and I can create a node that lets someone harvest it three times a day with the proper tools."
Dawn laughed as she pictured setting up gem nodes and nodes for exotic ores. "At which point you can upgrade the number of times someone can harvest it and stick a golem next to it with an indestructible pickaxe and some minions to haul the ore away."
"Yep," Myst replied with amusement as he caught a pottery bowl that dropped from his magical bowl wheel. "Or at least I could if I knew how to make golems," he mused as he checked the bowl's information. "It conjures soup when you tap your spoon against the edge and say food."
"That would be more impressive if we couldn't conjure food," Zara pointed out.
"We could always duplicate it a couple of times for the army or upgrade it into a cauldron or larger bowl then just pour it out," Dawn suggested.
"Something to play with. Should I fix the goggles or are you still working on them?" Myst asked as he turned his attention towards Dawn's goggles.
"Go for it," Dawn replied, fairly sure the problems were a result of the type of metal she'd used or possibly the lack of proper insulation.
Myst spent the required mana to improve their function. "Take a look then I'll work on boosting the durability."
"Thanks," Dawn said as she picked up her goggles and started examining them for differences, trying to figure out what she needed to do in order to create better goggles with the materials she had access to or if they were going to have to rip things apart so Myst could duplicate the upgraded material. "Speaking of nodes, I'd like at least one celestial bronze node and some ruby nodes for my devices."
"I'll get to it when I have somewhere to put them that won't cause more trouble than it's worth. That reminds me, I need to talk to Rhaella about looking for actual dragon eggs or upgrade the dragonpit and look there," Myst mused.
"Do you think the local dragons are better than the dragon forms we're going to get?" Zara asked, thinking about the dragons from her world that did more than just breathe fire.
"No but I'm curious if they have the ability to spread magic or if they just came back because magic did," Myst replied then yawned. "Sorry, I should get some sleep. Are you going to be able to duplicate the bracelet?"
Zara glanced between Hermione and Dawn then looked at Myst. "We should be fine but you should probably increase the length of the talon so Dawn can make some interesting bracelets for everyone."
"Good idea," Myst replied as he turned, focused on the talon and spent the mana to increase the length to four feet. "Just leave enough that I can improve the length."
"That's completely bullshit, you know that right?" Dawn asked with amusement.
"I'm aware," Myst replied with amusement as he headed out of the room, looking forward to catching some sleep so he wouldn't fall asleep in the middle of his coronation.
0o0o0
Comments
Mist of Shadows
I'm working on it.
Mist of Shadows
Thanks.
Robert Buniff
Good chapter. Keep going!
Alex Wierzbicki
Good stuff
