GoT: LB Chapter 08-09 (Patreon)

I overlooked the battlefield and could tell we had the numerical advantage, but they had the better terrain, and we were the aggressors, which would let them bunker down and hold their ground. I caught the eye of a spy with a crossbow in one of the trees. He watched the ground troops pass underneath, possibly waiting for a shot at a more valuable target, or possibly just hiding from the fight.

That was very unfortunate for him. I flew down and pecked at his eyes, which made him drop the crossbow and loosen his grip on the tree. He fell forty or fifty feet, which didn’t kill him, but left him completely surrounded by enemy troops. I didn’t gain a mutation or any points as he was stabbed through by a sword from a passing mercenary, which meant I had to be the one who killed them, not the reason they died.

Which sucked, it was going to be very difficult to kill someone as a bird. The enemies were still setting up catapults and ballista as our army approached. Some were going, set up, and firing, while others weren’t quite ready as we caught them off guard. The hill they held with the tents set up had several cooking fires going, as the area was mostly barren now, with most troops heading to intercept our army.

The final grouping was the generals near the back. I could see Stannis; this was early on in the war, before he was forced back to Storm’s End, where he’d be put under siege for almost a year. He’d most likely lose this fight, then retreat back where he’d tie up these forces until Rhaegar came and sent my uncles to guard Lyanna.

I ignored him. There wasn’t much I could do as a hawk; I could possibly peck his eye out, but in the long run, that wouldn’t mean much. I looked at my other options as I flew down at one of the catapults being set up and pulled the rope before it was ready. The tension was released, but as it wasn’t set up correctly, the thing exploded, killing one of the men while significantly injuring the other two. 

I heard a notification go off, and it was my first kill. I decided to look at the changes, while I’d just wait until after the battle if I killed any more.

Congratulations, you’ve slain your first enemy in mutual combat!

+10 Mutation Points

Lactose Tolerance

Cleft foot

So I could get one positive and one negative trait, or was I just awarded two since it was my first kill? I wasn’t sure; more testing needed to be done, and that meant more killing. I quickly flew away as some of the more alert troops noticed it was me and aimed their crossbows in my direction. I flew higher and made a few circles before coming down at the tent camp and knocking over some of the cooking pots and tents to try and start a fire.

If anyone had been watching, they’d have seen a bird struggle to pull the cloth close enough to the fire for it to ignite before finally getting lucky. Some of the injured men still lay inside, and I wouldn’t know until after the fight whether or not collateral damage like that would count, but I doubted it.

Swinging back around after that brief intermission. The people could no longer look into the air for me as they were actively being fought against. Most of the catapults were abandoned as the line of fighting passed by that area. I flew down, grabbed the rope, and launched one of the catapults at the troops on my own side. 

One, because this was the mad king’s army, and the second reason was that I wanted to see if I could get points for killing people on both sides. As I heard the same ringing notice I received from the first kill, I knew it was possible. With that, there wasn’t much more I could do. I helped where I could, but the few people I killed wouldn’t make much of a difference in the overall story; it was more for limit testing my powers.

It was ending already, we won and were pushing Stannis back, and the fighting had taken less than half an hour. I unwarged and came to. I heard the sound of someone rooting around, and one of our own troops came back and started robbing us. I had been flaunting my money, but I didn’t think anyone would be this stupid. I grabbed the crossbow.

The thief was a full-grown man, and I was only a child; there should be no way for me to kill him… Except no one told the crossbow in my hand that. I aimed as he was crouched down right next to my bed. If he’d have removed the covers, he’d have noticed me and Darkstar were sleeping in here, but his greed made him ignore his surroundings.

The small bit of noise I made grabbing it didn’t draw his attention. I stepped out of bed before winding the string back, the slight bit of metal scraping on metal as the handcrank spun was also not enough to draw his attention. Even the unlatching of the crank as I set it aside, he was too focused on rooting through our stuff and looking at the tent flap to notice me.

I could make out some of the person's details, even from his hunched-over position, and I think I could recognize him. He was one of the men I wanted to serve directly under me, but now, after the fact, I was happy he didn’t agree, because he’d have known about us staying behind instead of next to our uncles. Darkstar snapped awake, taking a deep breath that both other people in the room looked at. Before the man could do anything about it, I fired, piercing the side of his head.

I heard the dinging noise again… That meant that collateral deaths most likely didn’t count as the fires I started had to have killed someone, but I didn’t get an alert for it. Half an hour later, our uncles returned. Arthur yelled out in surprise at the dead body in our tent. “What in the seven happened here?” “What’s it look like? This guy showed up to rob us, so… He died.”

My uncles both looked at each other before Gerold Hightower asked. “Alexander… You’ve been acting strange ever since the war was announced. Is everything okay?” I smiled at him as I answered. “Yes… Sometimes you just have to grow up. Being kind to your enemies is unkind to yourself. This man was going to rob us, possibly kill us, so I killed him first.” 

They both gave each other a look again as they explained what was happening. “We’ll meet up with the rest of the Tyrell army to begin sieging Storm’s End.” I could only agree with them. As much as I hated the idea, we were at war. Bunkering down outside of Storm’s End would be good for building my own faction, but not for much else.

I needed to keep practicing, both my martial skills and my magical skills. Once we arrive, I could really begin to prepare for the future; until then, it was just more riding until we make it there. I looked at the rest of the changes as I exchanged the negative mutations for points and upgraded increased bone density to improved bone density.

Flexible 

Flu resistance

Night blindness

Low Spatial Awareness

Chapter 09

I found another use of negative mutations. I could spend five points to turn a negative trait into a positive one, and I had enough points after exchanging them to change low spatial awareness into the spatial awareness mutation. It wasn’t much; I was just more aware of what was happening around me, but if my life was in danger because of an assassin, I’d want every advantage I could get.

The changes to my body didn’t really show until we began sparring after we set up a siege camp. The improvement to my bone density not only meant I could take hits better, but I also recovered from wounds more quickly because my bones naturally produced more blood. It was equivalent to shaving off a day or two of injuries, but every bit mattered.

The flexibility mutation might have made the biggest change. My body was naturally bigger than most; it came at the cost of being a little more clunky than my cousin, but now I could dip, duck, and bend as well as he could, which made me have to change my fighting style again. My uncle Arthur didn’t use two weapons; instead, he defaulted to the popular sword and shield combo, but it made him much harder to kill than his two-sword style in the show.

The Dawn sword was the size of a greatsword, but because of the metal it was made of, it was light enough to wield with a single hand. It still meant he was a unit on the battlefield, it just wasn’t very realistic to wield two swords when you have a sword like Dawn to use.

The sleeper mutation was lactose tolerance. There wasn’t much for children to drink in these times, so it was either this or very weak, bitter beer. Almost no one drank water when they didn’t have to, which was the case for me as well. I knew that most people didn’t know not to contaminate water sources, so most were likely contaminated. It was easier to drink the slightly fermented liquid or cow juice rather than boil a pot of water to drink.

A week into the siege, I finally had a breakthrough in gaining troops who would follow me. It all boiled down to bastards. Noble children who were born to commoner mothers were the easiest to convince to work under me, and after I figured that out, and began making promises of possible futures outside of just being a bastard, I got ten men who were loyal and under my command.

…

Months later… A desperate man’s point of view…

I couldn’t believe my luck. One moment, I’m making off with one of the horses to sell. Next, I’m knocked off my freshly stolen horse, and a bunch of men beat me unconscious. Now, I hurt all over, and was tied down to a post with my head covered. I didn’t know where I was; I just knew this was worse than if they had just killed me.

A man pulled the cover off my head, and I swear I could recognize him, but it was a step off of actual recognition. He appeared like someone I knew, but I couldn’t put my finger on who exactly. He gave me a soft smile before he turned and looked down while speaking. “There you go, my lord. We got the man you needed, we just had to wait for the right time.”

It took me a moment to realize he was talking to a child. I looked down and wanted to speak, but my mouth was gagged. He spoke instead. “Thank you, Giles. I’ll make sure you’re rewarded after we get this unpleasantness dealt with.” The little boy spoke more eloquently than I’d have expected. I looked in his eyes and had to break off contact as I only saw malice in them.

I gulped as he kept explaining what he was going to do now, more to his men than to me. “What I’m going to do now is an ancient blood sacrifice ritual. This magic will help heal Darren, who might have lost his foot to gangrene if we hadn’t gotten this involuntary volunteer to sacrifice.” My eyes went wide as what he said sank in.

He was going to kill me to cure someone's foot! Not just kill me, but by the pyre I was on, burn me alive. I squirmed and thrashed as he spoke. “Hey, no need for that. When you tried to steal that horse, you were already dead. Let your death serve a purpose beyond punishment for your crimes.”

His words obviously didn’t calm me as another child came forward with a torch. I screamed into my gag as the blonde-haired child with golden eyes began to chant in a language I couldn’t understand. The fire was lit, and I slowly began to burn. I thrashed, but I was too bound to do anything; it was one last feeble attempt to escape this situation, the last desperate struggle for life before the smoke started to make me feel dizzy.

Before I fell unconscious, I looked at the child one last time, looked into his golden eyes, and I swear I could see him smirk at the reprehensible thing he was doing.

…

Quest complete!

Blood and… Blood, Part 02- Sacrifice a human in a blood ritual. Awards a portion of that human’s remaining lifespan, separate blood storage, and 10 mutation points

New!

Blood and… Blood, Part 03- Sacrifice a magical creature and infuse its blood into your own. Rewards depend on what creature you sacrifice: x10 blood storage expansion, blood thrall creation, and 100 mutation points

I didn’t really feel any changes from finishing the quest; I had no idea how much lifespan I gained, which was the real reason I sacrificed him. Sure, some of the magic would go to healing the foot, but most of the lifeforce was spent increasing my own lifespan, plus the lifespan increase reward from the quest. 

I was surprised by the great benefits I would gain from the next quest. I had thought it would begin to scale up, but that was easily ten times greater a reward than the previous tier. The final ritual was how Targaryians gained control over dragons; they killed enough, suffusing the dragon's blood into themselves enough for them to have a similar connection to dragons as if they were dragons themselves.

It would be a waste to do so on a dragon, as I already had dragonblood in my veins and could improve it with mutation points, so which did I choose? The default answer to me would be dire wolf or shadowcat. I knew that unicorns existed on Skagos, but they might have been hunted to extinction.

What would wyvern blood do to me? Would it increase my poison immunity? Would I be able to produce poison if I sacrificed a wyvern? The rewards were so good, I kind of wanted to rush and finish the quest, but at the same time, I wanted to think about which would be the best creature to sacrifice. Because I did have to sacrifice them.

That ruled out large or sea creatures like the kraken. I was so distracted that I sat thinking until Darren cried out in alarm. “My foot, my foot’s healed! M’lord, look, look! My foot’s healed!” I couldn’t help but smile as this all but cemented their loyalty to me.