GoT: LB Chapter 18 (Patreon)

Quest complete!

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

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Blood and… Blood, Part 04- Take the hearts-blood of one hundred sacrifices with your Valyrian blood blade. Rewards bloodstone creation, permanent reduction ritual corruption or negative effects, blood thrall warging, and 250 mutation points

I felt… Not much different. I may have been a little stronger, but the effects clearly weren’t physical. I could feel a magic core forming in the middle of my chest, right where it would have placed itself if I didn’t consume it. It was smaller, but not exposed to the outside; instead, it was tucked behind my ribs, right next to my heart. 

I still couldn’t guess what that core did to me until something happened. Sure, unicorns were known for holy/healing magic in other universes, but for all I knew, they were just extra magically horny in this one. I had no idea what they did, just that they were one of the more easily findable magical creatures I could sacrifice.

A few weeks later, I found out what the core did. It was regeneration; my wounds healed at a rapid pace, at least my smaller wounds did. It had the tendency to drain my energy if I received a wound bigger than a small cut. I began cutting myself after that, trying to hone my abilities and have it not activate immediately until I finally did figure it out.

The truth was, the power wasn’t that strong; performing a sacrificial ritual to heal myself made more sense most of the time, but during a battle or an assassination attempt, it might be the difference between bleeding out or surviving. Speaking of assassins. “How many does this make?” I looked at Giles as I asked, and he quickly answered. “This is the fifth this week.”

I breathed out; it was more annoying than anything. If they came at us together, it might work, but the single assassins that would show up every once in a while to try and kill Daenerys and Vicerys, but even they could tell something was up. If they really wanted to assassinate them, they wouldn’t send these awful assassins who don’t even look at the full picture before recklessly charging in like this.

It was Varys' influence and meddling. He was only doing enough to say that he had sent assassins; if anyone looked into it, they would see he did send assassins, but he was sending them to die. They were too valuable as pawns for him to use to get rid of this easily. At the same time, it was annoying, and I didn’t want to be tied so tightly to them.

Right now, I could talk myself out of execution if Robert asked why I was protecting them, but that wouldn’t be the case if I kept protecting them from these assassins, housing them as long as I had was already hurting my future plans. So we had to stage a ‘break-up’ as Vicerys and I were caught arguing before he left with his sister.

I would protect them secretly from now on, but they couldn’t be seen around me as I kept making plans. It was still years away from Robert and me meeting, but I had to lay the groundwork beforehand so becoming the next king would be that much easier. Removing the players before the real game started, while strengthening myself, was what I was mainly focused on.

Before the game started, I needed to kill Varys and Little Finger; they were the two real threats left besides the Lannisters, but by the time Robert died, they’d hopefully be supporting me for king; if not, I could always restage Tywin’s death. My spies were already telling me some very unsettling things that weren’t in the books.

Many houses that had nothing to do with the war might play a larger part in this world. It seemed like many still practiced ancient rituals behind the scenes. I needed to make sure most were on my side, or at least not putting their own person up to be the next king. 

Stannis would never become king in this timeline; he was crippled. I would be surprised if he survived until Robert’s death. Renly was the same. He would live, but he wouldn’t be nearly the same level of threat he was for taking the throne in this timeline. Losing an eye might not seem like much, but people stare, people won’t make eye contact, and no matter what you do, people will view you less positively if you have a huge defect like that visible on your body.

I still planned to ruin them even further while sabotaging Joffrey before he had a chance to become king. This time, there may be an accident that kills him before Robert’s death. It was time for me to move again. I needed to decide on whether to go for the unsullied next, purchasing an army without an army at my back already felt risky, or go and take over Illyrio’s villa.

I could start with smaller amounts of unsullied, maybe a thousand to start, before purchasing the rest and doing the same thing Daenarys did in the original, overthrowing the slavers and taking over the entire city for myself. That would draw a lot of eyes and attention to me. Going after Illyrio would put my own people in danger right now.

He had a handful of guards, but it wouldn’t be like the mansion I took on Lys; there would be casualties, and the casualties would be men loyal to me, so I was wavering… But… Why not do them both? Start with a thousand unsullied, then go take down Illyrio and ruin Varys’ plans before going back and taking over the entire city next.

Lys made the most sense to take over, as it was its own island; it would be much easier to defend. The island was mostly slaves with very few actual combatants as well, and most of those slaves were bedslaves. Pentos was the most vulnerable; that sounded great, but there was a real chance armies would come to take it back if I took it. I didn’t need to take Pentos, though. I could wait until after everything settled down in Westeros before taking over the free cities.

Astapor was the easiest to take. I just had to buy an army, then use that army to take it over. Unlike Daeny, who would leave and then slavery would restart, I could keep some of the slavers alive, rule it as a tyrant, or just leave it to rot after taking everything of value. I wasn’t sure which plan I was going to go with yet, but figuring out how to get a khalasar under me was another thing I wanted to do before the real war started.