Mist of Shadows
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Mist Part 10
🕑 Added 2017-08-03 03:25:10 +0000 UTCDawn scowled as she glanced around the table at her friends. “Is there a reason that we let them leave with the troops?”
Arya spoke up, “A deal is a deal. I created enough ships to haul his 20,000 soldiers across the sea. Unless he’s really lucky, his ships won’t make it back which means it will be a one way trip.”
Xander turned to look at Arya. “Don’t worry, I sent a message to King’s Landing to expect them.”
Mist sighed. “Great, which means that we’ll have another few hours to create minions for our attack on the Ironborn before we’ll probably lose access to the farm.”
Xander snorted. “He shouldn’t have tried to assault Daenerys.”
Buffy turned to look at Xander. “You do realize that he had actual sellswords with him, right?”
“Your point? I doubt that Illyrio shelled out enough gold to hire honorable mercenaries so if we kill a couple of thousand dishonorable sellswords, I’m strangely okay with that.”
Buffy shook her head. “I’d try to explain why you shouldn’t do things like that but I don’t think it would sink in.”
Xander snorted. “Illyrio is a greedy bastard. Viserys is a sociopath and would burn the world for his throne, anyone they hired for this mission was signing up for salvage rights on the city.”
“And suddenly I feel better and worse about your plan to sell them down the river,” Buffy admitted.
Dawn said, “I’m just glad that all of the contracts are done.”
Arya grinned as she thought about seeing her home. “Same. I’m looking forward to seeing Winterfell.”
“On that note, I should go create some elite soldiers while we can still use the minion trees.” Mist stood up and headed out of the building. He was looking forward to being able to make something other than crappy generic soldiers. He headed over to the closest minion tree and placed his hand against the trunk. He looked over his minion list and selected the mage class as well as the fire resistance trait that he’d gotten when he scanned Daenerys. He tweaked the hair color to silvery white and eye color to purple then slid the slider up to 100 which was the most the tree could make at a time.
He smiled as he watched a hundred fleshy globes grow on the tree as his mana pool took a significant hit. He smiled as he walked over to the next tree he’d built and repeated the process. He wanted to have a decent collection of troops with him when he took the Iron Isles so that he could try to keep the thralls and ‘innocents’ unharmed. He knew the mages weren’t the best he could create but they should be useful against the Ironborn.
0o0o0
Ranma stepped out of a door onto a ship. “Ho, I’m looking for Euron Greyfuck, anyone seen him?” He glanced around at the silent sailors that were glaring at him. “Tough crowd.” He lashed out and kicked the first sailor that jumped at him off the edge of the ship.
Euron shouted, “Kill him!”
Ranma blurred forward, grabbed the next armored sailor and tossed him off the ship. He smiled coldly as he danced through the crew tossing them into the ocean as he made his way toward Euron.
Euron stared in horror at Ranma. “What are you?”
“Your death.” Ranma pulled his soul trap dagger out of his inventory then blurred forward and stabbed the dagger into Euron’s ‘good’ eye. He ripped the dagger out of his eye socket then snapped the man’s neck with a sidekick. Normally he wouldn’t go for the kill but Euron was a sadist, rapist and raider and his crew was almost as bad. He searched Euron, grabbed his coin purse and a key then picked up his soulless corpse, opened a door to the desert and tossed his body through. He closed the door then headed for Euron’s cabin to start looting before he sank the ship to the bottom of the ocean.
0o0o0
Lily opened a door to Lord Drumm’s treasure room, reached through and stole the red Valyrian steel blade from it’s place of honor on the wall. She handed the blade to Mist. “If you don’t mind copying that?”
Mist duplicated the blade using his duplication ability then handed Lily the original blade. “You might as well put it back otherwise they’re going to go crazy and I’d rather not let people know that we can simply steal everything that isn’t nailed down.”
Lily put the blade back on the wall then closed the door. “Have you figured out where we’re going yet?”
Mist turned and looked at the bare earth where the minion trees had stood before the group had deconstructed them because they couldn’t use them anymore, apparently something had changed with Illyrio because they no longer had permission to use them to build their army nor the shipyard for building their ships which was a little annoying. “I think I’m going to skip dealing with the Ironborn entirely considering they’re currently minding their own business and things only went to hell after Robert died. I’d like to talk to Eddard Stark about the Others and wildlings, handing his family a number of Valyrian steel blades would certainly get his attention.”
“Are you going to forge your own or just copy them?”
“If I can get Tobho Mott in King’s Landing to reforge a couple of the knives I found into a short sword for Arya, I should be able to skim the techniques from his mind or even pay him to teach me how to forge Valyrian steel.”
“Considering how useful the stuff is against the Others, I can see wanting to figure out how to reforge the metal.”
Mist glanced out toward the ocean. “Learning to forge the stuff shouldn’t take all that long. I’d like to be able to tint the metal black and supply the Night’s Watch with at least a few blades before we start looking for another portal. Then again, I might just go with ebony weapons for the Night's Watch if the ebony from Skyrim works as well on undead and the Others as I’m hoping.”
“That might be better than handing out Valyrian steel blades like they’re candy,” Lily agreed.
“You know that Arya is going to want to spend at least some time with her alternate’s family, right?” Lily asked.
“I’m not in a huge hurry now that I’ve finished my contract. Helping the Starks and or Daenerys isn’t a bad way to spend time before we leave or find a portal so that we can continue exploring.”
“You’re right, it’s not. Have you figured out where your stripclub is?”
“It’s actually in King’s Landing, a bit annoying really, it almost makes me glad that the girls don’t travel worlds with us.” He wouldn’t have wanted to subject girls from other worlds to the degenerates in King’s Landing.
“In that case, you might as well kill Petyr Baelish while you’re there.”
“Point, he’s been on my list for a while.” He hadn’t managed to track him down before because of a lack of time. “I should probably talk to Arya about her plans.”
“Don’t forget talking to Daenerys about what she wants to do now that she’s free of her brother. You should probably take Egwene to visit the smith considering her talents with earth and metal.”
“Let’s see if she’s busy.” Mist pulled out his phone and called her.
Egwene answered on the second ring. “What’s up?”
“I was planning on heading to King’s Landing and talking to a smith about forging Valyrian steel, are you busy?”
“No, I was just working on some magical research in the library, is it safe to teleport to you?”
“Yeah, I’m still at the farm.”
“See you in five minutes then we can head to King’s Landing.”
“Sure.” Mist closed his phone then stuck it back in his pocket. “We’re good.”
“Do you want a lift to King’s Landing once Egwene gets here?” Lily asked.
“That would be easier than trying to fly there with Egwene or using a town portal and having a bunch of people freak out about the portal.” Mist was looking forward to taking a jump where he could just relax and wander around without feeling like he had to be somewhere or fix things.
0o0o0
Getting the secrets of reforging Valyrian steel out of Tobho Mott wasn’t nearly as hard as Mist had expected it would be, he’d merely given the smith three copies of one of the many Valyrian steel daggers they’d recovered from Valyria, paid him a decent amount of gold and watched invisibly while the smith forged the blade. The fact that he could read the man’s mind and had copycat for some of his special techniques certainly helped.
After the sword was more or less finished he’d frozen time and created a temporary clone of Tobho then killed the clone for his memories. He glanced over at Egwene who was still frozen in place as he hadn’t unfroze things yet. ‘I really need to duplicate the armlet and start working on training everyone’s resistance to time stop.’ He picked up the dead clone and stuck him in his inventory. ‘Hopefully he’ll provide something when I toss him in as a material component.’ He pushed the button on his watch and let time continue. He gestured for Egwene to follow him then made his way out of the shop.
Egwene stayed silent until they were outside of the smith’s shop. “That was certainly interesting, I’m curious how well a power wrought blade would stand up to Valyrian Steel.”
Mist frowned slightly as he considered the question. “They probably wouldn’t have the esoteric effects like the ability to kill the undead like Valyrian steel but they might. It’s probably worth testing. I wouldn’t mind seeing if we can upgrade Valyrian steel blades with that technique.”
“I don’t have a problem with running some tests if you can enchant something to create liquid Valyrian steel.”
“Easy enough,” Mist replied with amusement.
Egwene asked, “Have you figured out what you’re going to do about the White Walkers?”
“I was thinking about bolstering the Night’s Watch with minions. I also want to build a couple of forts north of the wall that can act as traps for the White Walkers and safe places for the wildlings to stay. Either way, if it comes down to it we can probably sweep large swaths of land with holy fire.”
“Are you keeping Daenerys?”
Mist shook his head. “She’s not mine to keep but she’s certainly easy on the eyes and smart.”
“You know what I mean. Are you going to invite her with us?”
“Unless anyone has a real objection, yeah. She’s a princess without a kingdom and without a throne. Robert might be a bad king but they’re going to need a general against the White Walkers and that is something he can do. The trick is going to be convincing him that the danger is real but I have a couple of ideas. Either way, ready to hit a brothel?”
Egwene raised her eyebrows. “Yours or Petyr’s?”
“His of course, I’d like to have a chat with him about trying to poison Jon Arryn and his creative banking.”
“What if he’s not actually guilty of anything?”
“If he’s not actually guilty of anything, I’ll eat my hat.” Mist turned and started walking toward Petyr’s main brothel where he knew the man spent most of his time.
Egwene smiled as she followed Mist through the city.
Thankfully it didn’t take all that long to track Petyr down to one of his brothels. After that it was just a matter of taking a seat across the way at a tavern so that he could look through Petyr Baelish’s mind without standing around looking conspicuous. It didn’t take him all that long to confirm that Petyr had been moving money around and that the crown actually had plenty of money owed to them from various sources even if the ‘extra’ income wasn’t on the books or at least not the books that he showed the Small Council. Amusingly enough it had actually started off legitimate, it was just that somewhere along the line he’d realized that Robert wasn’t the most money oriented and had started hiding it so that he could bring in loans and make more money off the gold than the banks were charging in interest. Of course, the fact that he was making the money for the crown meant that he thought he should be paid a percentage of the profits and rather than ask for a raise, started skimming off the top. He muttered, “Yeah, he’s guilty.”
“I’m not all that surprised,” Egwene admitted.
Mist frowned slightly as he found a memory of Petyr’s involvement in the plot to kill Jon Arryn. He activated his X-ray vision and looked at Petyr who was sitting at his desk working on a ledger. He scanned the man and smiled slightly as he unlocked an expert banker profession. ‘So much for doing this the nice way.’ He teleported a mug into the man’s head then generated an avatar under the table.
The avatar teleported into Petyr’s room and shifted to look like him. He picked up Petyr’s corpse and stuffed it in his inventory. While his skinwalker ability might not be his best ability it was certainly in his top five favorite abilities.
He glanced over at the logbooks that Petyr had been working on. He had a feeling it would take at least a couple of weeks to shift enough money around that he could make a noticeable dent in the kingdom’s debt. The first step was to use the money he’d stolen from the church to pay back the Iron Bank, the next was to use Petyr’s stashes to pay off the church and the last was to use evidence against Cersei and Jaime to blackmail the Lannisters into forgiving the debt the crown owned them in exchange for not destroying the entire house for attempted line theft. He had a feeling that he’d have the crown out of debt within a month and it wouldn’t take all that much effort to steal the money back from the church once everything was said and done.
Mist smiled as he stood up. “Let’s head back to my club and watch some dancing girls.”
Egwene smiled at Mist. “Only because you asked so nicely.”
0o0o0
The assassin scowled slightly as he climbed the last couple of feet up the outside of the tower, leveled his crossbow and shot Roose Bolton in the head through the window. He put the crossbow back on his back then worked on climbing down the tower. He’d already shot Ramsay in the heart earlier so his mission was mostly done. Now it was just a matter of using the ring that Sin had given him to listen to the thoughts of the Bolton guards to see if any of them were decent people. He had a feeling the Dreadfort would run red with the blood of the corrupt and evil before the night was over but it didn’t bother him all that much as house Bolton should have been destroyed thousands of years ago as far as the boss was concerned.
0o0o0
Arya felt slightly jealous as she watched the purple tinted Valyrian steel short sword take form on Mist’s magical anvil. It was a bit disturbing knowing that forging a simple steel weapon on the anvil would turn it into a fiery magical blade that would cut through most swords like butter. She was looking forward to creating her own Anvil of Fury once she had all of the pieces. ‘At least I have patterns to trade that they don’t have.’ She smiled as Mist held up the finished blade. “I hate to say it but that’s a better sword than Needle.”
Mist smiled at Arya. “Cut Jon some slack, Valyrian steel is sort of hard to find or afford.”
“I know. I’m looking forward to seeing the look on Catelyn’s face when she realizes she can’t refuse Arya getting a sword.”
“You’re a cruel girl, you know that right?” Egwene asked with amusement.
Arya snorted. “I hate needlework, I was never going to be the perfect daughter but she insisted that I practice anyways. Not to mention the Septa had this delusion that I cared about the Seven. I can pay someone for a dress if I have to have one and I’m a daughter of the North.”
Mist smiled as he handed her the blade. “Feel free to step outside and give it a few practice swings.”
Arya accepted the blade carefully then turned and walked out of the blacksmith wagon and took a couple of test swings after making sure that no one else was in range of her test swings. “I love it.”
“It’s suits you.”
Egwene asked, “Do you think that the other Arya will like it?”
“If she’s anything like I was, she’ll love it,” Arya replied as she took a couple more practice swings. She turned and looked at Mist and Egwene as they stepped out of the wagon. “Do you have a plan on how you’re going to convince Ned that you’re not completely insane?”
Mist shrugged. “I was planning on letting you convince him that you traveled into the past to save your family.”
Arya snorted. “Yeah, no. Most people in Westeros barely believe in magic, convincing them that someone can turn back time would be almost impossible.”
“You could always pretend to be Arya Snow, the bastard daughter of your uncle.”
“Or I could stab you?” Arya replied with a touch of amusement mixed with a glare.
“I’m sure we can figure something out.”
Egwene said, “I vote we just ride up to the castle and set up shop outside the gates. It shouldn’t take more than an hour for someone to see Arya’s blade and go running to tell Lord Stark.”
“I guess we can play it by ear,” Arya admitted.
Mist grinned as he headed for the driver’s seat. “In that case, we should get on the road, we’re only about five miles out.”
“I know.” Arya replied as she followed Mist to the front of the wagon with Egwene.
0o0o0
Ned stared at his daughter’s sword in shock as he looked it over. “Where did you get that blade?”
“Jon got it for me from the traveling blacksmith in the winter town,” Arya Stark admitted as she glanced at Jon who was looking rather uncomfortable.
Catalyn glared at Jon. “How could you possibly afford a Valyrian steel weapon?”
Jon spoke up, “It was actually quite reasonable, I just thought it was high quality tinted metal.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you gave my daughter a sword.”
“Because she wanted one and has the right to learn to defend herself,” Jon replied as respectfully as he could but still firmly. He was just glad that Ned hadn’t complained about him giving her the blade, just the metal.
“That is what guards are for!” Catalyn snapped.
Ned spoke up, “I think it’s time that we go talk to this smith.”
Jon just nodded, not wanting to dig himself in any deeper than he already was.
0o0o0
Mist looked up as a party of people on horseback rode up with Jon Snow. He almost didn’t recognize Ned Stark as the man actually looked in his mid thirties rather than the actor’s fifty something. “Greetings and salutations, what can I interest you in today my lords?”
Ned Stark dismounted. “I have been told that you sold a Valyrian steel weapon to Jon.”
Mist gestured at Jon. “If you mean the young man, that is correct. I have several such blades for sale to the right people.”
Jory Cassel spoke up, “Right people?”
Mist turned to look at the man, “Of course, I only sell blades to men or women of honor and noble spirit. He told me the blade was for his sister, did he lie?”
Ned shook his head. “No, I’m just surprised that you would sell the blades so cheaply.”
Mist shrugged. “It’s not about the price, it’s about the owners. If I wanted to make money, I’d sell Brightroar to Lord Gold Shitter himself.”
Jory snorted. “I’d be careful about where I said that.”
“I’m not in the Westerlands, I’m in the North.”
Jon asked, “Are you saying you have the Lannister ancestral blade?”
“If I don’t there was another lion hilted blade made that looks just like it.”
Jory snorted. “Right, tall tales.”
Mist turned and looked into the wagon. “Arya, if you could bring out Brightroar, I’d appreciate it.”
“Sure,” Arya replied as she reached over to the shelf and picked up the Lannister blade. She walked out with the blade in its sheath. “Here, you go.”
Ned stared at the girl that looked like an older version of his daughter or a younger version of his dead sister. “You look like a Stark.”
“My mother always said that my father was from the North.” Ayra kept her face straight with some effort as she looked at the alternate of her father. She held out the blade. “Feel free to look the blade over, some friends of ours fished it out of the waters around Valyria.”
Jory stepped forward and accepted the blade, then drew it. Needless to say he was shocked at the weight or rather lack of weight of the blade. He stared at the metal then at the handle. “If this isn’t Brightroar it’s an excellent fake.”
Mist shrugged. “If it’s not Brightroar I’d be surprised considering my friend also found the Lannister crown with it. Either way, I’m not terribly worried about it because they aren’t for sale.”
“You could almost name your price, why not sell it?” Rodrik asked.
“Because I’m not worried about money and I make Valyrian steel blades. Besides, I might need the material.”
“I’m guessing you’ve met him?” Jory asked with thinly veiled amusement.
Mist shrugged. “Not to my knowledge, I’ve just heard less than pleasant things about the man. Either way, would you like to buy some weapons, I have a nice collection of interesting weapons for sale.”
Jory asked, “How many other Valyrian blades do you have?”
Arya smiled at Jory. “I’ll get the barrel.” She turned and walked back into the wagon to grab the barrel of blades the girls had fished out of the water around Valyria.
Ned had a feeling the girl was elder brother’s bastard. He was more than a little shocked when she came back with a barrel filled with blades with the look of Valyrian steel. He’d have to test them to make sure but there was more Valyrian steel in the barrel than he’d ever seen in one place and almost more than he’d ever seen. He changed the last part of that thought when another girl brought out a second barrel filled to the brim with swords that unless he missed his guess were also Valyrian steel blades. “How…”
Arya grinned. “We weren’t joking about some friends fishing the blades out of the water. It’s amazing what you can find if you’re willing to sail to places best forgotten.”
Jory stared at the barrels in shock. “How much?”
Mist glanced at Ned then looked at Jory. “That’s up to Lord Stark.” He turned back to look at Ned. “If you’re willing to buy a custom sword for Jon and each of your children that don’t already have a blade, I’ll toss in twenty Valyrian longswords to do with as you please.”
Ned asked warily, “How much?”
“Double the gold of castle forged steel and your promise to have all of your children trained to use them.”
He winced slightly as he thought about trying to teach Sansa how to use a blade. “Why so cheap?”
“I have other weapons to sell that aren’t Valyrian steel, if you’re happy with my work, I’m hoping that you’ll put in a good word with the Commander of the Night’s Watch.”
“And if I’m not happy with your work?”
“Then you’re out very little and you may keep the twenty Valyrian steel blades,” Mist replied with a touch of amusement.
“Do you mind if I have my maester look the blades over?” Ned asked warily as he tried to figure out what the man’s angle was.
“I have no objection, I’ll even let you choose the twenty blades that you want other than Brightroar.”
Ned considered his wife’s inevitable fit and decided that in this case, she’d just have to get over Sansa and Arya learning to fight. “Provided that everything checks out, you have a deal.” He turned to look at one of his guards. “Please request Maester Luwin’s presence.”
The man nodded then remounted his horse and headed back toward Winterfell.
“In that case, let me show you some of our wares.” Mist turned to look at Egwene. “If you wouldn’t mind grabbing the crate of ebony weapons, I’d appreciate it.” The ebony swords he was planning on selling to the Night’s Watch could burn with fire and shouldn’t break thanks to an elixir of permanence that he’d poured over the original. While he could have made the blades more impressive, he wasn’t interested in supplying an order filled with a bunch of criminals heavily enchanted blades that would cut through anything. He was saving that type of blade for the Stark children.
“I can do that,” Egwene replied as she headed back into the wagon to grab the crate of ebony weapons.
Arya wasn’t sure how to feel as she watched the alternates of men she’d grown up knowing look through the swords like children with a tray of delicious sweets that had just been told they could only have three. She was glad that she had came back to Winterfell but Sin had been right, this version of the castle wasn’t her home. She knew she could probably make a home in the area but it wouldn’t be the same which meant that leaving with Mist and the girls would probably be for the best after making sure everything was set up for dealing with the Others.
0o0o0
Mist spent the next couple of days at Winterfell crafting nearly legendary weapons for the Stark Children, scanning the various structures, rooms and areas in Winterfell and trying to avoid stabbing Theon because he kept whining about not getting a Valyrian steel blade. Thankfully that problem was solved by Tiffany heading to the Iron Islands and killing his father which caused him to be recalled which probably kept Ayra from stabbing him to death and getting herself in trouble.
After that they took a nice ‘quiet’ ride up to the wall with Ned and a company of his men so he could explain about the ebony weapons in person and check on the wall. Having Ned and his men escort them was both a blessing and a curse. It was a curse because the trip took longer than he would have liked but it was a blessing as having Ned along meant that he had an in with the Commander that he wouldn’t otherwise have had. It also gave him a chance to forge a decent number of the ebony blades while traveling. Normally he probably would have just duplicated them but he wanted the practice and he wanted them all slightly different.
Egwene stared at the wall as they approached the wall. Say what you would about the sanity of building a three hundred mile long wall that was seven hundred feet tall but it was certainly impressive. She doubted that even the ancient Aes Sedai had pulled off anything as impressive or if they had, no records had survived. She was looking forward to examining the various enchantments on the wall to see if they could be duplicated. She wouldn’t mind being able to create a wall that shadowspawn couldn’t pass, not that she really had to worry about shadowspawn all that much these days. She glanced over at Arya who was driving the wagon. “Any decent scans of the wall yet?”
Arya kept her eyes on the road as she replied, “A pattern for a wall that prevents undead from crossing it which is about what I expected after talking with Mist. There should be some interesting scans inside the keep but mostly I just want to head north of the wall and find the portal that Willow and Tara found with the scrying spell. I want to build a keep around it then jump to the next world and see what we can find.”
“I have a feeling that we could spend years here and still not fix everything.”
Arya laughed. “Or decades. Speaking of, do you ever regret jumping ship with Mist?”
Egwene glanced at the closest guard then lowered her voice to a whisper. “Not really, I’d gotten over being homesick after I left to train to be a witch then I had the group of witches betray me. We’d started setting up a country on another world which I wouldn’t mind getting back to eventually but we’ve got time.”
“That was one of the things Elza used to say. How long do you think it will take Hermione and Laura to copy the maester’s library?”
“That depends entirely on how large and well organized it is. I doubt that Laura is interested in anything beyond the section of the library that deals with magic which means that she might already be done copying things.”
Arya frowned slightly as they approached the Night’s Watch and she saw the looks some of the men were sending her way. “Try not to wander around alone, the watch has a lot more criminals in it than honest folk.”
“We should probably see about fixing that.” Egwene glared at one of the men until he looked away.
Ayra stopped the horses. “I have a couple of ideas but I’d need the group’s help.”
“I’m sure we can figure something out.”
Mist walked out of the wagon and glanced around. He wasn’t terribly surprised by the number of hard eyed men that glared at him with thinly disguised hate or greed. ‘They’re going to need more honest men here.’ He plastered a smile on his face as Ned explained that he was here with weapons for the men. ‘Ah, well, I just need to sell the weapons then we can head north.’
0o0o0
Harry frowned slightly as he looked at the abandoned city that Sin wanted to rebuild. There weren’t any windows left, half the stone walls had fallen or been burned and in some places purple glass littered the ground. “Are you sure that you want to rebuild the city?”
Sin turned away from the ruins and looked at Harry. “Of course. There are plenty of wells, peach trees, figs and various fruits growing wild here. The best part is that no one owns the land which means that we can claim it and work on rebuilding the city while Mist finishes up in the north.”
“What about the Dothraki?”
“They’re just raiders, they don’t own the city or even the surrounding land. Besides, we should be able to stick enough magic users around the city to keep it safe from a bunch of horse raiders. Not to mention if they try to raid it, we have an excuse to raid them.”
Harry snorted. “Like you weren’t going to do that anyways.”
Sin smiled at Harry. “Come on, Hermione wants to free a bunch of slaves from the various slave cities in Essos, we need a place to put them or we’d just be doing more harm than good, freeing them.”
“It sounds like a fun project and should give us plenty of practice.” Harry figured restoring the city shouldn’t take more than a couple of days depending on how many Builders they could get to help.
0o0o0
Xander had to hide a glare as he handed over a rather large bag of conjured gold crowns to the slaver in exchange for ten slave girls that were anywhere from eight to twelve. Normally, he’d have just gutted the man for selling children and been done with it but slavery wasn’t illegal in Meereen or even frowned upon by most of the citizens or at least the ones that weren’t slaves. He glanced at the group of ten minion mages that Sin had lent him. “Take them to the city, be gentle.”
The lead mage smiled at the girls and said something in a language that Xander didn’t understand but which seemed to reassure the girls as they left with five of them.
Xander looked back at the merchant, “Do you have anything else for sale?”
“Gems and silk from far off lands,” the merchant replied smarmily.
Xander half listened to the man’s speech as he used his magic ring to listen to the man’s surface thoughts. It didn’t take him all that long to realize that it was a good thing he was using conjured gold because the jewelry wasn’t worth nearly what the man wanted for it. Still, it was gold and the gems were real so he didn’t really care how much fake gold he traded away. He had a feeling the city would wake up in the morning screaming for blood when they realized that a significant amount of gold had vanished during the night. He knew that at least twenty of Sin’s avatars were running around selling conjured gold trinkets for gold in different disguises just in Meereen.
Hermione had wanted to try to lead the slaves in a revolt but thankfully Sin had talked her into bankrupting the slavers instead. Freeing some slaves would just mean they’d have to grab more, nothing would really change in the long run. On the other hand, bankrupting the main families and slavers by using conjured coin and trinkets would help. Either way, they could give the slaves a better life in most cases than they’d get in Meereen. He wasn’t naive enough to think that they’d be able to fix everything but he could certainly cut the profit margin for trading slaves down to almost nothing. He smiled as he bought the merchant’s entire inventory of trinkets. He fished the location of another slaver out of the man’s head then headed off.
0o0o0
Mist wasn’t sure if he should be annoyed or happy about having to spend two weeks repairing the various keeps on the wall. On the one hand, he got to explore the Nightfort and get a scan of the magical door that he could set to only let certain people through, on the other hand it was two frustrating weeks of finding material and building the bits and bolts of every single thing they needed to replace rather than just repair because of his finicky flaw.
He wasn’t sure if ‘walking’ the top of the wall to fix all of the siege engines was worse or better than having to check the wall section by section with his X-ray vision to make sure all of the runes were in working order before they poured magic into the wall to recharge it. Of course, a fair number of the runes had failed over the last 8,000 years which meant they had to fix a bunch of runes before they could recharge the wall.
Thankfully, Arya was a quick study with the flight ring he’d given her or it would have taken months or years to climb the walls and repair all of the various damaged runes if they couldn’t cheat. Thankfully they hadn’t needed to resort to going back in time to collect Bran the Builder to help with the runes though he probably would have considered it if he’d had a better understanding of the exact timeframe of the world. As it was, scanning the runes and using magic to repair them worked in most cases. In the couple of cases, where it didn’t he was able to object read the remains with ESP and reconstruct them.
Arya smiled as the wall almost seemed to glow with energy after Mist and Egwene finished charging it. “That should certainly help keep the White Walkers out of Westeros.”
Egwene asked, “What about the wildlings?”
Mist looked away from the recharged wall. “The girls are probably done with building the city in the desert, with their help it shouldn’t take us all that long to wall off the peninsula below Hardhome with something that might keep the White Walkers out or at least slow them down. That should give people enough time to flee to Essos.”
“After that we can step through the portal and see where it goes.” Arya was looking forward to seeing what else they could find that would help keep the North safe.
Mist pulled a printed off map of the lands North of the wall out of his inventory. The map was crap but he doubted one existed in that was better. He pointed to a narrow section of the peninsula south of Hardhome. “If we build a wall here, it shouldn’t take weeks or months and the groups of wildlings might be able to cover the entire wall.”
Arya said, “We could probably create a portal to the Dothraki Sea, which would let the wildlings flee directly to Essos. We’d just have to ward the area around the portals.”
“Hermione and Albus should have some ideas,” Egwene pointed out.
“Sounds good,” Mist replied as he pulled his cell phone out and dialed Hermione’s number.
Hermione answered before the second ring, “How did it go?”
“The wall didn’t explode when we charged it with magic so I’m calling that a win. Did you finish the city?”
“We finished the last of the outer walls yesterday and the moat around the city today.”
“Moat? How are you going to keep it filled with water?” Mist asked curious what Hermione was planning.
“Aguamenti charms and infinite water containers,” Hermione replied with a hint of amusement.
“That makes sense, have you had any more trouble with the Dothraki?”
“Not since we drove away the first group that showed up when we started construction of the city walls and framework. After that it was a group from Qarth screaming about building in their ancestral city but nothing that we couldn’t handle. Harry is looking forward to the setback flaw vanishing at the end of the jump.”
“I don’t blame him, we had a couple of groups of Night’s Watch men ask about our projects and suggest improvements and such things more than a couple of times,” Mist admitted.
Arya snorted. “Rather annoying really.”
Hermione said, “Another nine months and we’ll be done. When are you going to come check the city out?”
Mist glanced back at the wall. “As soon as we finish creating a second wall to keep out the White Walkers.”
“You’re going to create a second massive wall?” Hermione asked in surprise.
“No, I was just thinking about tossing up a twenty foot wall across the peninsula that is warded against undead. It won’t last 8,000 years but it doesn’t have to. All it has to do is slow the Wights and White Walkers down so the Free Folk can flee through a portal or get on a ship.”
“We could bring them to Essos. As long as we can set up enough water fountains and wells, they shouldn’t have a problem settling in.”
“That works.” Mist figured they’d need to create more pots that created food but that wouldn’t be a problem.
“In that case, I’ll tell the rest of the Builders here that you have a project for them.”
“Thanks, I want a tour of the city once we finish the wall.”
“I’m pretty happy with it. See you in a few.” Hermione ended the call and stuck her phone back in her pocket then headed toward the main square where Harry and Laura were working on the blueprints for the magical section of the city.
Mist put his phone away. “She’ll round up the crew then we can get started.”
“Good,” Arya agreed.
0o0o0
Mist was almost ready to start banging his head against something by the time the group finished building a twenty foot tall wall across the peninsula south of Hardhome to give the wildlings an alternative to trying to scale the main wall. He could understand getting attacked by a ‘small’ army of undead that were trying to prevent the construction, he could even sort of understand the various groups of wildlings that didn’t trust them and wanted to know why they were there but the group that decided to try to raid their supplies while they were trying to build a wall to save everyone north of the old wall annoyed the hell out of him. He was just happy that the trouble mostly evaporated as soon as they finished constructing the wall which meant that most of it was caused by his flaw. He had to say mostly because of the army of undead assembled in front of the wall. He glared at the White Walker commander he could see at the middle of the army. “Turn back or die.”
The White Walker gestured and the army of undead charged the wall and Mist.
Arya snorted from her spot on the top of the wall as she knocked an ebony arrow and drew it back. She lined up her shot then loosed the arrow at the commander. She smiled as the ebony arrow hit the White Walker in the chest with a burst of fire. Her smile brightened as the White Walker turned to ice as he clawed at his chest only to crumble and break apart before he could pull the arrow out.
Mist raised his hands and tossed a rolling wave of holy fire at the army of undead. He wasn’t terribly surprised that his wave of fire destroyed every wright it touched. He knew that destroying the main army wouldn’t be quite this easy but compared to some of the monsters they’d fought, the wrights just weren’t that scary. He scanned the forest from right to left looking for any wrights that he might have missed. He spotted a couple stragglers scattered around the surrounding forest. He reached out and teleported them into the field in front of him then gestured and sent another wave of holy fire at the twisted skeleton like wrights. “I was expecting more.”
“Can you teach me how to do that?” Arya asked hopefully.
Mist floated up until he was level with the top of the wall then ‘walked’ over to where Arya was standing. “I don’t see why not. The holy flame wave wouldn’t require more than a couple dozen doses of magic elixir and opening a magical book or two.”
“Does that mean you could teach the Starks?”
“Provided you can talk Ned into it I can certainly try but good luck convincing him to allow his family to drink the magic elixirs they’d need to.”
Arya sighed. “Yeah, I can’t see that happening.”
“Probably not. The Stark side of the family might have enough magic to pull off some low level spells but that would still require letting them read a magical spellbook. Besides, sorcery isn’t exactly on the list of things a proper noble should practice in the North.”
Arya snorted. “Try anywhere outside of Essos or the far east.”
“Exactly. I took care of Petyr Baelish and made sure that Jon Arryn wasn’t going to drop dead of poison any time soon. That means we should have plenty of time to come back later and help. I want to see where the next portal goes.”
“Just as long as we can come back. We can come back, right?” Arya asked warily.
“Of course, Lily and Ranma can open portals while we’re in the jump and we can return to the local collection of worlds between jumps if you need to visit.”
“In that case, let’s pick everyone up and see where the portal leads.” Arya was looking forward to seeing where the next portal led so she could pick up some interesting scans.
