House Among Chaotic Kingdoms

Votes for this Turn:

A1 - Infantry - 3

A2 - Reputation - 2

A3 - Magic&Med - 5

A4 - Physical - 51

A5 - Mixed Army - 0

S1 - Wikipedia - 0

S2 - Steam - 10

S3 - Wookiepedia - 51

S4 - World - 0

Bold Butterfree:

Berenice: 54%

Sam: 36%

Omek: 10%

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Rolls for this Turn:

Personal: Wookiepedia

Thanks to Ironweave, we now possess the ability to instinctively reinforce fabric and related materials such that they act as if they are heavy armor.

Due to this being an L6, the ability will manifest on any viable clothing we're touching whenever we're in fights, making us de facto in heavy armor nearly all the time from now on.

The ability can be activated manually and at a range that will increase with levels in the related skill, however, as this was not an L7, the ability will not be something we are consciously aware of, and so we won't be able to train that aspect of it.

World: Dragonlance Wiki

Thanks to Bloodkeen, Stannis Baratheon now has a Valyrian Steel Sword in addition to his Melisandre gifted Valyrian Steel Armor.

If nothing else, this means he won't need to keep replacing Lightbringer when it melts.

(Not a huge tactical change, but it is a PR win for him and a PR Loss for Joff’s “Only the Old and New Gods” strategy, since this one also popped out of the flames, lending more legitimacy both to him and to the existence of the red god, even for sceptics like Stannis.)

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Story:

At first, Fawnton mattered less than the wind under Janus's wings.

Rain ticked across black feathers and rolled away behind him.

The town below was roofs, torchlight, movement, and a dozen places Janus thought might contain food.

You cared about gates, groups of men, fires, and whether anybody looked ready for an attack.

Janus cared more about one wet roof shining in the torchlight and something small moving beside a rubbish heap.

Both sets of thoughts were yours while you were inside him, which had stopped being quite as confusing as it once was.

You pulled his attention down toward the palisade.

Walls mattered, gates mattered, and men gathering near either one mattered more than whatever lived beside the rubbish.

Janus disagreed about the last part, but he banked lower anyway.

The movement inside Fawnton looked wrong before you understood why.

Men were running toward the middle of town instead of toward the walls.

Another group pushed the opposite way while smoke rose from somewhere that should not have been burning.

Janus liked the lower pass much more than you did.

Faces became visible below, along with drawn swords and men shoving other men wearing the same colors.

A voice carried upward through the rain, broke apart, and vanished before the words meant anything.

One man pointed toward a yard near the eastern side of town.

Three others dragged him backward before he reached it.

Whatever they were arguing about, Fawnton's defenders were already fighting each other.

You still had no idea why.

Janus wanted another pass over the roof with the interesting puddle.

You wanted your own body back before several hundred men inside Fawnton remembered they were supposed to hate you instead.

Feathers, rain, the pull of air beneath the wings, then nothing.

You woke under blankets with both hands clenched and your own body feeling much too heavy.

For several breaths, the roof of your tent seemed offensively close.

You flexed your fingers until they felt properly yours again.

Then you noticed you felt good.

You had spent half the night looking through Janus instead of properly sleeping, and yet as usual you felt more rested than usual.

That made no sense, but Fawnton was tearing itself apart before sunrise.

You could wonder about warg-sleep after taking advantage of it.

There were several thousand men nearby specifically for that purpose.

Jason arrived fully dressed before Sam arrived fully awake.

Alyn came quickly enough that you suspected he'd slept in half his clothes, while Jon's expression told you he'd already guessed Janus was involved.

Sam reached the table last with his coat badly fastened and one boot still unlaced.

He bent down, tied it while you were speaking, and never asked anybody to repeat themselves.

You pointed toward Fawnton on the map.

"The defenders are fighting each other inside the walls."

Jason looked toward the dark tent opening and then back toward you.

"How certain are you?"

"Certain enough that I want to attack before breakfast."

"Where are they fighting?"

"Mostly near the middle and around their eastern stores."

Jason leaned over the map without asking how you knew any of it.

"Has it reached the walls yet?"

"Not when I last saw them."

You regretted the wording as Alyn looked at you sharply.

Jason only nodded and asked the next useful question.

"How long do we have?"

"I have no idea, which is why I want to move now."

That answer pleased nobody, but nobody needed to like it.

The army had already planned to surround Fawnton because nobody knew how many dragons were waiting inside.

Now you were doing the same thing before every company had finished breakfast.

Alyn started changing the Infantry order.

Jason took the roads where horses could still move.

Sam pulled the supply sheets toward himself and frowned at all of them.

"Our marching order is wrong for this."

"Can you make it less wrong?"

"Yes, if nobody expects elegance."

You looked around the damp command tent.

"Nothing about the Rainwood has been elegant."

Sam sighed and started moving markers.

"Then start marching before somebody fixes Fawnton."

Jon was already outside by the time you followed.

Orders moved through camp faster than they would have even a month ago.

Companies knew who they belonged to, officers knew what they were allowed to change, and nobody needed you standing beside every problem personally.

The whole camp shifted east while the sky was still dark.

Janus dropped onto the edge of a wagon nearby.

You glanced at him without thinking.

When you looked away, Yara was watching you.

Her eyes moved from you to Janus and back again.

Yara had known you when Janus first started following you around Winterfell, and she'd known the Stark children when all of you had suspiciously clever animals nobody could properly explain.

She'd also known you long enough to recognize that "well trained" was never an honest answer.

You gave her the smallest shrug you could manage.

Her eyes narrowed in the exact way they used to when you and Jon had done something stupid and expected her to accept the explanation.

Then she rolled them and went back toward Jason's people.

Be more careful, idiot, and obviously I am not telling Patrek.

You watched her go for another heartbeat.

It had taken perhaps three seconds.

Anybody else would have seen Yara look at you and then walk away.

You'd received a warning, reassurance, and a reminder that being Army Group commander had not made you harder for childhood friends to read.

Fawnton got an assault intended for somewhere much more impressive.

Tulin's archers started shooting before half the defenders reached the palisade.

Alyn sent Infantry toward several sides at once while Jason covered the roads and the few stretches of open ground where horses remained useful.

The whole thing would have been excessive against a respectable wooden fort.

Fawnton had wet timber walls and several hundred people increasingly desperate to be somewhere else.

The first locals started leaving before your Infantry reached the gate.

They were not charging anybody.

They were climbing walls, pushing through openings, and running away with both hands visible.

Some shouted that they weren't soldiers before anyone asked.

You hadn't ordered anyone to keep frightened townsmen trapped inside, so most were allowed through.

The actual garrison did not look much more organized.

One group moved toward the walls while another was still fighting around the eastern yard Janus had shown you.

A burst of flame rose above one of the buildings.

Three men ran out while two more chased them with swords.

Whatever dispute had started before dawn had become much less theoretical.

Jon watched another flare disappear behind the roofs.

"That should be the eastern stores."

"Unless Fawnton has two places where people are setting themselves on fire."

"Wouldn't surprise me anymore."

Rain slid down the front of his helmet while he spoke.

"At least the weather is trying to help."

You watched smoke flatten beneath another gust of rain.

"The weather has been trying to drown everyone equally for weeks."

"Fair."

That was as much credit as either of you felt like giving the Rainwood.

The palisade lasted longer than some of the defenders did.

Alyn's men forced one gate while another section found theirs half abandoned.

A third group discovered somebody inside had already opened a side entrance.

After that, the assault stopped looking like an assault.

It became several ugly fights happening between houses while your men tried to work out which armed people were still on the same side.

The worst of it remained around the eastern yard.

You reached it after Long Lake Infantry had already pushed through.

Several bodies wore Stannis's colors.

Several more wore red.

A shed had burned hard enough to blacken the rain-soaked wall beside it.

Whatever had burned inside had burned much hotter.

You found twisted pieces of metal among strange grey powder turned into paste by the rain.

Several pieces looked like the broken tube Tyrek had shown you.

None looked usable.

The men who definitely knew how to operate them were dead around the yard.

That was irritating, but being irritated about enemy specialists dying during your own attack felt ungrateful.

By midday, Fawnton belonged to you.

The victory had taken less effort than approaching the place.

One Lieutenant had died before anyone ever saw the weapon that killed him.

You had spent days imagining hidden dragons behind every tree.

Then you arrived with an entire Army Group and found the garrison fighting itself.

That didn't make the Lieutenant less dead.

It did make breakfast very late.

Sam found you eating bread beside the eastern yard while prisoners were still being sorted.

"You know this is not where I expected to find you."

"I know where the food wagon stopped."

"That is supposed to be my excuse."

"You were busy interrogating burned metal."

"I can do both."

Sam took part of your bread anyway, which ended the argument.

Getting one story out of Fawnton proved impossible.

Getting six stories took less than an hour.

One townsman swore the Red Priests had been trying to burn the strange weapons before you captured them.

A soldier claimed they wanted the weapons for themselves.

Another insisted the priests had only become involved after Davos's men refused some order nobody could agree on.

Everybody remembered the ending better.

The Red Priests and the men trained on the strange weapons already hated each other.

Somebody brought fire near the powder.

The trained crews objected.

Then enough people started killing one another that nobody still alive could agree who had drawn steel first.

One prisoner finally supplied a useful name.

"We call them dragons."

You looked at the blackened tubes beside him.

"Those are dragons?"

"That is what the crews call them, m’lord."

He glanced toward the wreckage.

"They sound more like dragons when they work."

The name was better than saying new sling weapon every time.

The survivors also knew more useful things than you had expected.

The powder had to stay dry.

The dragon had to stay mostly dry too.

A soaked one could refuse to work even after its crew thought they'd dried it.

Fire was necessary somewhere in the process, although no prisoner could explain that part properly.

Too much fire was much easier to understand.

The shed had explained that without testimony.

One soldier described loose powder catching while men were moving it and then stopped talking for several breaths.

He had no eyebrows left.

You decided his version was detailed enough.

Nobody needed Sam asking how close he'd been standing.

The rest of the picture came together from smaller answers.

Dragons took much longer to prepare again than an archer took to loose another shaft.

Their little projectiles went through armor much better than they had any right to.

The noise frightened horses, especially when several fired together.

One hidden dragon was useful for killing somebody before his friends knew where to look.

A line of them could break a cavalry charge.

Jason listened to three prisoners describe how badly the horses had reacted.

His expression got worse with every account.

By the third, he looked like somebody had insulted every horse he'd ever owned.

"You could look happier about learning this here."

"I am happy to learn it here."

"You should tell your face."

Jason looked toward the ruined dragons.

"I'm imagining learning it after ordering a charge."

That did explain the expression.

Patrek, standing behind him, looked from his father to the wreckage.

"Trust me, this IS his happy face."

Jason ignored him with the ease of a father who'd had years of practice.

Patrek looked pleased with himself anyway.

Sam wanted entirely different answers.

He wanted to know what the powder was stored in, how much each dragon used, which part went into the tube first, and how the crews kept any of it dry here.

Most prisoners knew one part and guessed the rest.

Alyn cared about armor.

Tulin cared about how many arrows he could loose before a dragon fired twice.

Scouts wanted smoke, flashes, and anything else that betrayed where the shooter stood.

The ordinary soldiers ended up answering more useful questions than anyone expected.

They had carried boxes, watched crews complain, heard orders, and learned which things made the specialists start swearing.

One older soldier compared the weapon to an old farm wagon.

"It is excellent while every piece stays exactly where it belongs."

He rubbed one wrist after the rope came off.

"Then one part gets wet or shifts wrong, and six men spend an hour cursing it."

That stayed with you better than most of the technical answers.

A dragon could put a hole through an armored man's skull.

It could also become useless because the Rainwood had done what the Rainwood did every day.

Neither fact cancelled the other.

It was still dangerous.

It just stopped being mysterious.

By the third day, your army had started changing around what you'd learned.

You ordered almost none of it.

Scouts spread out more on exposed approaches.

Officers stopped volunteering to be the single most recognizable man on horseback.

Archers watched for smoke after any strange report.

Jason had riders making horses listen to sudden bangs from shields, dropped timber, and anything else loud enough to be unpleasant.

The horses hated this.

The riders hated it slightly less.

Jason considered both reactions worthwhile.

Nobody asked you before starting.

One corporal suggested carrying extra water specifically for captured powder.

Somebody else pointed out that drenching every suspicious sack would also destroy plenty of your own useful supplies.

That idea died before reaching you.

Wet blankets for handling captured powder lasted longer.

So did spreading dragon crews out farther whenever anyone eventually captured one intact.

That was how much of the Army Group worked now.

Someone found a better way to do something.

If it worked, other people stole it by the next week.

Sometimes the person responsible got promoted.

Sometimes he got better work or a public compliment.

Nobody expected a good idea to remain private property because it came from the wrong rank.

Davos probably encouraged the same thing.

You still had no reason to think a former smuggler became stupid about common-born men after somebody gave him a lordship.

That advantage remained annoying.

Davos had fewer men, though.

You weren't ready to decide how much that mattered.

Fawnton had bought you several days, and the readers of your life had apparently decided you needed to spend them getting hit with swords.

Jon continued training his guards whenever rain wasn't falling hard enough to make the yard useless.

Harl remained infuriatingly good at the breathing method.

You remained better with a sword and worse at doing exactly what Jon told you with your lungs.

Then Sam joined the lessons.

You expected this to be entertaining.

For the first few minutes, it was.

Sam knew where his feet were supposed to go and still managed to put them there late.

His sword wandered whenever Jon made him think about breathing at the same time.

Harl stopped smiling only after Jon threatened to make him demonstrate every movement twice.

Jon finally took the sword away from Sam.

"Forget the blade for now."

Sam looked visibly relieved.

"Stand properly and breathe."

"I have been…."

Jon stared Sam down rather than accept a witty comment.

Sam understood the breathing almost immediately.

That was much more irritating.

Jon demonstrated the rhythm once.

Sam copied it.

Jon changed one piece of the timing, and Sam fixed it on the next attempt.

You had spent days fighting the instinct to breathe too early.

Harl had needed several sessions before his body stopped arguing.

Sam stood there without a sword and treated the whole thing like somebody had finally converted combat into accounting.

Within minutes, his breathing was steadier than yours.

Harl noticed too.

"That cannot possibly be fair."

Sam opened one eye.

"What part offends you?"

"The part where you are good at this."

"I am standing still and inhaling."

"You should see Lord Stark do it."

You considered assigning Harl to latrine inspection.

Jon eventually gave Sam a heavy practice blade again.

He asked for one simple strike into the padded post.

Sam set his feet badly.

Jon moved one of them.

Sam took the breath and swung.

The post jumped sideways against its ropes hard enough to quiet everyone nearby.

Sam nearly lost the sword afterward.

That hurt the dignity of the moment without changing what had happened.

He had hit the thing hard.

Jon looked at the post and then at Sam.

"Do that again."

Sam looked much less pleased than everybody watching him.

"I am not sure what I just did."

"Then doing it again seems useful."

Sam reset.

The second strike landed nearly as hard.

You found yourself looking at the Valyrian steel sword he carried when he wasn't training.

Sam remained a bad swordsman.

He had also just shown enough raw force to make that fact much more interesting.

If Jon ever attached one to the other properly, Sam would become dangerous in a way nobody meeting him expected.

That was a good reason to keep him in the yard.

It was also a good reason to stop Harl laughing at him.

Harl had become much too comfortable lately.

You joined the next round and caught a practice blade across one sleeve.

The cloth should have torn.

It did not.

You checked after the bout and found the fabric stretched slightly without a proper cut.

That had happened several times lately.

One coat had survived branches that should have opened the shoulder.

A pair of trousers had escaped a fall with no torn knee.

Now the training shirt had survived another obvious cut.

You assumed the quartermasters had found a source of better cloth.

Then Jon told you your breathing had become sloppy again.

The mystery of improved tailoring was lost immediately.

The more interesting problem was Janus.

You and Jon went over Fawnton that evening while Ghost slept beside him.

Janus had found the fighting before any human scout could.

He had also been nearly useless for telling you why it was happening.

That difference mattered more than either of you had expected.

"Ghost would've known people were frightened."

Jon scratched behind one gray ear.

"He would've known which way people had been running."

"Janus knew where everyone was gathering."

"He didn't know why."

"Ghost wouldn't know why either."

Jon looked toward Ghost.

"He'd know more about what happened before."

"Janus knows more about what is happening across the whole town."

That was the answer.

You'd been treating warging as one ability that happened to use different animals.

It worked better if you treated every body as a different tool.

Janus understood height, movement, roads, fires, and groups.

Ghost understood tracks, fear, scent, and what had passed through a place hours earlier.

Jinx overlapped with Ghost, but she noticed different things and stayed close enough for local work.

You understood maps, orders, and why any of those observations mattered to an army.

The answer was not forcing an animal to think like you.

You needed to learn what questions each animal could answer naturally.

That gave both of you something to practice.

There was another piece you still couldn't explain.

"I feel better after doing it."

Jon looked away from Ghost.

"Better after what?"

"Sleeping through Janus."

"You spent most of last night scouting."

"I know."

"That should make you tired."

"I am aware of how sleep usually works."

Jon frowned for a moment.

"You were asleep the whole time."

"Yes, Jon."

"Maybe your body still gets the sleep."

"Then why do I feel better than normal?"

Neither of you knew.

You decided useful mysteries did not need immediate punishment.

If working through Janus at night left you more rested the next morning, you were going to use it, even if you had no explanation for why Jon didn’t gain this benefit.

There were worse problems than magic being too helpful, you supposed.

Most of your experience involved the opposite.

Two nights later, Jinx found a better use for the time.

Being inside Jinx did not feel anything like flying.

There was no map below you because there was barely a world beyond the next trees.

Wet earth mattered.

Rotting leaves mattered.

Warm trails crossing cold ground mattered much more than roads.

Camp smoke sat heavy in the nose while animals that had passed hours earlier were still present as scent.

You moved through brush that would have annoyed you on two legs.

Branches mattered only when they hit the nose.

Darkness did not feel empty because everything alive had left something behind.

You understood very little of that until Jinx understood it first.

Then something above you moved.

A strange damp smell drifted down between the leaves.

Mushroom, warm flesh, wet air, and food.

Jinx looked upward.

You looked with her.

The flying mushroom bobbed between branches like somebody had given dinner wings.

Jinx jumped before either of you had finished deciding anything.

You wanted it because she wanted it, and she wanted it because it smelled excellent.

For several heartbeats, there was no point deciding which thought belonged to whom.

The creature dipped low.

Jinx snapped and missed by inches.

It climbed fast enough that her teeth closed on rain.

She chased beneath it until the undergrowth became too thick and the creature rose beyond reach.

Jinx stood panting beneath the trees and stared after it.

Dinner had escaped.

You agreed with her assessment completely.

When you woke, your mouth was watering.

You were also rested again.

By breakfast, you had reached two conclusions.

The sleeping part was definitely useful.

The flying mushrooms deserved further investigation.

The second conclusion had considerably less to do with magic than the Green Study Group would have preferred.

Fawnton gave you the chance to deal with the north first.

The road split there exactly as the maps promised.

One route continued east toward Cinnamonton.

The other ran north toward the Mistwood Hills and Crow's Nest.

Reports from Ser Harries Basin-Lannister made continuing east without using that road increasingly stupid.

Cron Clegane's scouts were still doing good work.

There were simply too few of them.

Enemy pressure had increased across several routes.

Harries could keep Crow's Nest.

That did not mean the whole northern screen would remain intact without men.

You spread the newest reports across the table while Jason read one and Sam read others.

Tulin stood beside his father.

Jon leaned over the route toward Foggy Cascades.

You had taken Fawnton partly so the army could finally split here.

Now avoiding that split because it was inconvenient would defeat the whole point.

"The main body keeps moving east."

You tapped Cinnamonton.

"We send a strong force north from here."

Jason pointed toward Foggy Cascades.

"That gives Harries a position between here and the hills."

"And somewhere useful for scouts," Jon said.

Sam checked the supply notes.

"They move faster without the heavy wagons."

You pointed Tulin looked toward the north road.

"You'll be second beneath Ser Harries."

Tulin nodded and failed to completely hide how pleased he was.

That was fair enough.

Cron would keep doing what he already did well.

Harries retained the formal command.

Tulin brought men, archers, and the habits your Army Group had spent years building.

Two Springlords went north with them.

Berenice refused before you finished proposing her as one of the two.

"I am staying with you."

"There are healers with the main body."

"I know because I organized them."

"Berenice."

"Wulfric."

You looked toward Jon for support.

Jon studied the map with sudden religious devotion.

You looked back toward Berenice.

Her arms were already folded.

The discussion had ended before you realized it was an argument.

Two other Springlords would go north.

Jon was going too, but only temporarily.

His actual job remained Captain of Guards for the Army Group.

He would travel with Tulin through the scouting around Foggy Cascades, then return.

Harl went with him.

Jon chose several other guards himself instead of waiting for you to hand him names.

That pleased you.

Months earlier, Jon would have taken whoever you assigned him.

Now he knew which men kept quiet, which men handled ugly ground, and which men he trusted when nobody senior was watching.

Captain had stopped being something written beside Jon's name.

He had people of his own now.

That mattered more than another promotion would have.

Owen Storm joined the group as well.

You barely had to think about that choice.

He knew the Rainwood, his father hunted there, and people from the area had reasons to listen when he spoke.

You had also already trusted him with more important things than most Southrons.

The magic was only the newest part.

Owen still worshipped the Seven.

That did not stop him believing the Old Gods had plainly blessed you too.

He treated those ideas like there was no argument hiding between them.

The Seven were his gods.

Your gods clearly existed because they kept doing things around you.

Wulfric Stark being blessed by both groups was apparently easier to accept than asking which theology should win.

You did not make him explain it further.

That was the part you liked.

Owen only asked whether Ghost was actually helping scout.

Jon told him yes.

Owen nodded like this improved the mission.

"Good, he has better sense than most men."

Jon smiled.

"That includes several men coming with us."

Owen looked over the group.

"I wasn't going to say which ones."

That was exactly the sort of discretion you wanted.

Your written orders took longer.

Scouting came first.

Ambushes were encouraged.

Nobody was to manufacture a grand battle because they had gone several days without one.

If an opening appeared, they were expected to use it.

Fawnton had proved that dragons did not make Davos's men immune to surprise.

Known military supporters of Davos remained legitimate targets.

Organized Red worship was not to be tolerated.

You added everything useful you knew about Grandfather corruption and told the Springlords to treat anything similar as serious immediately.

Then you spent more time talking about ordinary Stormlanders than enemy soldiers.

"The Stormlanders are not the enemy."

You looked between Jon and Tulin.

"Some support Davos, some support Joffrey, and most want armies to stop marching through their homes."

Tulin nodded.

"So leave them alone unless they force the issue."

"More than that."

You tapped the orders.

"The King intends to rule these people afterward."

"Do not burn homes because somebody failed to cheer."

"Do not empty a hamlet because carrying supplies is annoying."

"Do not make enemies because people are scared of soldiers."

Jon gave you a look after the third mention of Joffrey.

You ignored him.

"The King's orders are that this remains his kingdom."

Tulin's mouth started twitching.

"The King's subjects are not loot."

"Yes."

"The King's peace matters after we leave."

Jon looked toward Tulin.

Tulin looked toward Jon.

You stopped talking.

"I have mentioned the King too often."

"A little."

"You are going under a Lannister cousin while operating beside Gregor Clegane's younger brother."

You folded the orders.

"I can live with being repetitive."

Neither man argued with that.

The Red God had never done especially well in the Rainwood anyway.

That made sense to you.

A fire god was harder to impress people with somewhere every household spent half the year trying to keep kindling dry.

Then you remembered enough about magic to wonder whether the weather actually mattered to the god too.

That was not a question you could answer today.

You preferred the scouting problem.

Jon knew the northern route.

You knew Janus could follow it.

The main difficulty was making sure your raven did not start behaving more like a staff officer than an animal.

Janus could circle roads, watch fires, and track large groups.

He could not hover ten feet above Jon every time officers discussed something important.

Eventually even very trusting people would notice.

"Keep him high around anyone outside the group."

Jon traced the route with one finger.

"Lower when you need a closer look."

"I cannot hear properly from high up."

"Then stop trying to use him for conversations."

"You are removing most of the convenient parts."

"I am removing the obvious parts."

Ghost would handle the close work.

Owen and Jon's men would provide human confirmation.

Janus would tell you where those scouts should look.

That was the real improvement.

You weren't trying to replace men with magic and then invent lies afterward.

You were using magic to make the men better at scouting.

That sounded much easier to keep going.

The northern force left at the end of the week.

Tulin rode near the front beneath Long Lake colors.

Jon went with him.

Ghost disappeared into the trees and returned whenever he felt like proving roads were a human weakness.

You watched until the last men vanished into wet green.

Then the main Army Group turned east.

The Rainwood remained miserable.

Your army had become much better at being miserable inside it.

Merren inspected crossings before you reached them.

Sam planned supply movements on the assumption that the road would fail somewhere.

Jason assumed half his cavalry would spend the day walking.

Nobody called a command meeting because another wagon found mud.

That saved an amazing amount of time.

Not enough to make the army fast by normal standards.

Enough to stop losing half a day every time the Rainwood behaved exactly like the Rainwood.

Captain Hugh found you after an afternoon drill.

He waited until you finished correcting two guards before approaching.

His armor was open at the throat and muddy up both shins.

"Can I ask you something about training?"

"You have just watched Harl hit me twice."

"That is part of why I am asking."

You looked toward Harl.

Harl looked much too pleased with himself.

"What exactly are you missing?"

Hugh took long enough answering that you knew he'd thought about it before coming over.

"Years."

That was a better answer than you expected.

Hugh could fight.

He'd survived enough battles to prove that without anybody granting him a Ser.

What he had never done was spend childhood as a page and adolescence as a squire being forced through every martial lesson some knight considered proper.

"Men treat Captain like it means knight sometimes."

Hugh rubbed one gauntlet against his jaw.

"I know the things I know."

"I also know where I start guessing."

You'd promoted him into expectations he had never been given the childhood to meet.

That was partly your problem.

You could not give him ten years.

You could give him footwork outside a formation, better guard positions, recovery after a committed strike, and more sword work against one opponent.

Hugh learned quickly whenever a lesson connected to fighting he'd already done.

More importantly, he knew when he didn't know something.

That made him easier to teach than plenty of young nobles with much better training.

He also became an extremely strange training partner for Sam.

Jon was north.

Stone Breathing did not stop because its inventor had left for a few weeks.

Sam was now the best person available for explaining the breathing part.

The first time you told Hugh this, he looked at Sam and then back at you.

Sam noticed.

"You are allowed to look doubtful."

Hugh shook his head.

"I am trying to be respectful, my lord."

"That is worse."

Sam stepped into the stance Jon had taught him.

"I am better than Lord Stark at this part."

You glared at him.

Hugh looked between both of you.

"Which part?"

"Breathing."

Hugh stared for another heartbeat.

Then he laughed.

It was the first time you had heard Hugh laugh during training.

Sam looked mildly offended.

"You can laugh after you manage it."

"I apologize, my lord."

"You do not sound apologetic."

"I am learning from experienced nobles."

Sam demonstrated.

Hugh copied him badly.

Sam corrected his timing.

Hugh accepted that, then moved Sam's back into a better position during the next strike.

Within several minutes they were correcting each other without asking whether rank allowed it.

You stood nearby with a practice sword and found the whole arrangement familiar.

Sam understood the rhythm better.

Hugh understood what that rhythm was supposed to accomplish in a fight.

You could teach both of them the sword work around it.

If Jon had been there, he would have found at least three things everyone was doing wrong.

Harl would have found one and enjoyed mentioning it.

Training continued whenever the march gave you room.

Sam's movements stayed ugly and became much stronger.

Hugh started fitting controlled breaths into things his body already knew.

You helped Sam with basic sword work and Hugh with everything outside his normal Infantry habits.

Your own breathing improved slowly enough to remain irritating.

Your clothes also kept surviving things they should not.

Hugh caught you across the ribs one afternoon hard enough to leave a bruise.

The wooden edge dragged over your shirt without tearing it.

Two days later, a branch caught your shoulder and failed to rip the coat.

At that point you decided somebody had definitely found better cloth.

You meant to ask the quartermasters who.

Then Sam hit the practice post hard enough to make two nearby men turn around.

You forgot again.

There were more interesting improvements happening in front of you.

Better shirts could wait.

Night increasingly belonged to Janus.

The transition became easier each time.

You no longer spent the first minute fighting the shape of wings or trying to remember that looking down involved moving an entire head differently.

Janus also stopped resisting every attempt to focus on roads instead of food.

The bigger change was yours.

You stopped trying to turn him into yourself.

Sometimes Janus noticed movement before you did.

Sometimes his interest in a tree meant somebody beneath it had shifted.

Sometimes he became fascinated by something useless and you let him finish being fascinated.

Working together went better than constantly arguing with a raven from inside his own skull.

Jon's route north appeared in pieces over several nights.

A column moving beneath rain.

Tulin's archers sheltering under trees.

Ghost showing himself as a flash of silver and then disappearing again.

Owen pointing down a narrow path.

Fires beneath the Mistwood Hills.

Conversation remained the worst part.

Human voices from above were thin, broken things.

Janus cared more about hands moving than words being spoken.

You stopped wasting attention trying to catch complete sentences.

Numbers, direction, movement, and danger were enough.

The human scouts could handle language.

Every morning, you woke rested.

By the second week, you had stopped acting surprised by that.

You planned around it instead.

There was no reason to waste daylight doing work Janus could handle while your body slept.

Whatever magic was giving you the extra recovery could explain itself when the war became less busy.

The Green Study Group found you around midday several days later.

Alyn arrived with one younger Reach lord and a healer you recognized from earlier meetings.

Neither looked amused, which made you more interested immediately.

"What happened?"

"We caught one."

You followed them toward a covered wagon.

The flying mushroom sat inside a wooden cage reinforced with wire.

It was larger than the ones you had seen before.

That was not an argument or an impression.

They had measured it every day.

"It has grown since we caught it."

Alyn pointed at the figures beside the cage.

"More while it stays near your part of camp."

The creature slammed its cap against one side.

The wire rattled.

You looked at Alyn.

"You called this more docile."

"It is more docile."

The healer kept her hand well outside the bars.

"It used to do that every time anybody approached."

The creature snapped toward her fingers.

"Now it mostly does that if somebody gets too close."

You considered the improvement.

"Very comforting."

Several people around the wagon started talking about growth, temperament, distance, food, and whether the change followed your Green.

You listened because all of that mattered.

Then the creature turned sideways.

Jinx's memory came back before anybody finished the next measurement.

Wet earth beneath four paws.

The thing dipping between branches.

Teeth closing on rain.

That warm mushroom-and-meat smell.

Hunger.

"It probably tastes good."

Everybody stopped talking.

Alyn looked at you.

The Reach lord looked at the creature.

The healer looked back at you like she expected clarification.

You pointed toward the cage.

"It is a mushroom and an animal."

Nobody disagreed with that.

"That sounds efficient for stew."

The Reach lord slowly looked back at the fleshy cap.

Alyn's eyes moved toward the wings.

The healer leaned a little closer without putting her fingers near the bars.

"Would the wings count as meat?"

The Reach lord asked.

You looked at them.

"I suppose somebody has to find out."

Alyn stared at you for several seconds.

You left before the Green Study Group became responsible for lunch.

Nobody resumed the old argument before you got out of hearing range.

That felt like a victory.

Teba took the remaining archers after Tulin went north.

Nobody made much of that either.

Tulin was the better archer, and nobody expected his father to pretend otherwise.

Teba had more than enough military experience to command archers without embarrassing anybody.

He already had their respect.

You made him Major over the remaining force, he asked two questions about reporting lines, and then he started doing the job.

The army had become good at moving work toward whoever could handle it.

Nobody required the replacement to be identical to the man who left.

Late in the month, you went to sleep expecting Foggy Cascades tomorrow.

Jon's last known position put the northern force close enough to begin proper scouting at first light.

You intended to find Janus, watch the final approach, and see what waited ahead.

Instead, Janus found fire.

Rain struck black wings hard enough to change the sound of the world.

A roof burned below.

Men ran through orange light.

An arrow passed somewhere beneath you while Janus banked toward motion before you even understood what you were seeing.

Foggy Cascades was already fighting.

That made no sense.

Last you knew, Jon was still approaching carefully.

Tulin had been preparing to scout.

Now Long Lake colors moved between wet buildings while men pushed through a broad stopping yard.

Somebody shouted a name below and the wind ripped half of it away.

Janus saw fire, motion, bright points worth watching, and good places to land.

You saw formations and tried to see a plan.

A bright moving figure crossed open ground.

Janus followed the movement.

You recognized Jon before the figure disappeared behind another building.

Ghost flashed beside him and vanished into trees.

Farther away, Tulin stood beneath an awning while his archers shot into darkness.

Red fire burst from somewhere Janus could not see.

The whole settlement spread in too many directions for one pair of eyes.

Every roof hid something.

You tried to understand the battle anyway.

Buildings blocked sight.

Trees swallowed men.

Rain smeared movement at distance.

Janus could turn his head, bank, climb, and see another piece.

Every new piece hid a different one.

Then you reached for something Janus did not have.

You had been trying for months.

Every earlier attempt to keep your warrior's senses while sinking fully into another body had faded almost as soon as the animal became real enough.

You reached for it now because sight was not enough.

The warrior's sense for nearby people came with you.

There were men behind the wall below.

Janus could not see them.

You knew exactly where they stood.

The shock of succeeding broke your concentration.

The sense vanished.

You grabbed it again.

Three men behind the wall, more beyond a line of trees, another moving quickly behind a roof.

You held Janus's wings, the rain, and those living presences below all at once.

The sense slipped again.

You restored it.

Then you held it.

For the first time, the warrior's sense remained while you were fully inside Janus.

Months of practice had finally worked.

The battle kept moving beneath you.

You did not understand exactly how you were doing it yet.

The range was shorter than you wanted, packed groups blurred together, and holding both senses made your head ache.

None of that changed what had happened.

The warrior's sense worked through Janus now.

You could use both at the same time.

Foggy Cascades changed once the blank spaces stopped being blank.

A roof still blocked Janus's eyes.

It no longer erased everyone behind it.

Trees still hid men from sight.

They did not hide the fact that men were there.

You could follow parts of the battle that had been invisible moments earlier.

The loyalists were winning.

Resistance had broken into separate pockets instead of one line.

Red fire appeared again through the rain.

Tulin's archers shifted.

Jon vanished and reappeared between buildings while Ghost moved farther out.

You still did not know why the attack had started.

That answer existed in conversations you had missed.

You did know how it was ending.

Foggy Cascades was falling.

The only real question was how long clearing a spread-out settlement in darkness and rain would take.

It took most of the night.

One cluster surrendered.

Another tried escaping into trees where somebody was already waiting.

Other pockets disappeared as the loyalists worked through buildings and stopping yards.

By the time the sky started lightening, organized resistance was gone.

Foggy Cascades belonged to your side.

You knew Jon was alive.

You knew Tulin was alive.

You still did not know what decision had turned tomorrow's scouting mission into tonight's attack.

That could wait for a human explanation.

Janus found somewhere high enough to rest.

You let him settle and released the hold.

Waking hurt behind your eyes.

Your thoughts felt like you'd spent hours reading tiny writing by bad candlelight.

Your body felt completely rested.

Magic had apparently decided those two conditions could coexist.

You lay beneath the blankets until your thoughts stopped spinning.

Then the practical problem arrived.

Foggy Cascades was yours.

Nobody around you knew that.

There was no version of announcing the victory before a messenger arrived that made Janus look less suspicious.

So you ate breakfast.

You answered Sam's questions.

You inspected the day's marching order.

You kept your mouth shut.

Knowing more than everybody else became irritating before noon.

By afternoon, the army had moved farther east.

By evening, no messenger had arrived.

You knew the northern force had won and still had to listen to people discuss what might be happening there.

Janus slept through most of the day.

You found that particularly offensive.

He had done considerably less thinking than you.

Berenice acquired the enormous butterfly before Jon returned.

You found her beneath a tree with the creature sitting beside her like this arrangement had always existed.

Up close, it was stranger than at a distance.

The wings were broad enough that Hobb had been right to object when Tulin compared its size to him.

Its eyes were also much too large for comfort.

"You finally caught it."

Berenice looked toward you.

"I did not catch anything."

The creature shifted closer to her.

"It came over and stayed."

"That sounds less reassuring."

Berenice ignored you.

One hand rested against the creature while she wore the distant expression that meant her healing senses were somewhere you could not follow.

The butterfly tolerated the examination better than the flying mushroom tolerated anything.

You waited until Berenice focused on you again.

"Well?"

"I do not know what half of this is."

"Excellent."

"I know what bones feel like."

She frowned at the creature.

"I know what organs feel like."

"And this has neither?"

"It has things doing those jobs."

Berenice looked annoyed by her own sentence.

"They are just wrong."

You took one small step farther from the wings.

"Anything useful?"

"Poison."

That made you stop.

Berenice touched the creature again.

"Something here interacts with poison differently."

"I cannot tell whether it resists poison, removes it, or changes it."

"But it would be useful?"

"Yes."

You looked at the giant brightly colored insect again.

It had improved substantially.

"Have you named it yet?"

"No."

Berenice looked toward the wings.

"Do you have anything useful?"

You considered that seriously.

"Butterfly."

"No."

"Then I have contributed everything available."

Berenice rolled her eyes.

The creature stayed beside her.

You left both of them to work out the naming problem.

There were rivers to dislike.

Cinnamonton appeared through the trees near the end of the month.

Calling it larger than Fawnton was not saying much, but it was large enough to change the problem.

River traffic had built more life around it.

Small boats moved goods inland, warehouses sat near the water, and coast-hugging traders could actually reach the place.

Unfortunately, the river was real.

Not Ravens River real, where Merren could insult a bridge and build rafts around it.

This river sat between you and a defended town.

Crossing under observation would be an entirely different problem.

Merren was already examining banks before you finished looking at the settlement.

Sam stood nearby with several pages of notes.

Jason had scouts moving both upstream and downstream.

Nobody asked whether there was a way across.

They had gone straight to finding the best one.

That was another thing your army did now without needing you to announce it first.

You were studying one crossing when riders appeared down the road.

Jon came behind them with Ghost running through the mud ahead.

He looked tired enough to sleep in the saddle.

He also looked pleased.

Jason saw him and turned before anybody called.

Teba arrived from the archers.

Sam folded his notes.

You tried to arrange your face into something appropriate for news you had known for days.

Jon dismounted.

"Foggy Cascades is ours."

Jason smiled.

Teba took one slow breath.

Sam looked toward you.

You nodded as if this information had not arrived through black wings well before Jon did.

Pretending surprise seemed harder than simply avoiding it.

"Start from when you reached the settlement."

Jon accepted a cup from somebody nearby.

"We found refugees before we found the town."

"From Fawnton?" Sam asked.

"Some of them."

Others were soldiers and locals.

Fawnton's survivors had carried news, fear, and arguments north with them.

Foggy Cascades had suffered another split.

This time, the Red Priests had won.

Jason leaned closer.

"How completely did they win?"

"Enough that half the men who hated them left."

Jon handed the cup back.

"Most locals who could leave went too."

"That left the priests holding the place?"

"Priests and whoever stayed with them."

Jon, Tulin, and the scouts had arrived expecting to observe first.

Instead, they found a badly weakened settlement whose defenders were still sorting themselves out.

Waiting would only give the enemy another day to recover.

So they attacked around sunset.

That explained why Janus had dropped into the middle of a battle you thought belonged to tomorrow.

You started smiling before Jon finished.

Not because Foggy Cascades had fallen.

You had already watched that happen.

The people you sent north had found an opportunity and acted on it.

Nobody wasted days sending a rider south so you could approve the obvious answer.

You had given them standing orders.

They had enough information.

They made the decision.

They were right.

That was the army you had been trying to build.

Davos had capable men.

You had no reason to think otherwise.

You also had a lot of capable men who knew they were allowed to make useful decisions without waiting for Lord Stark to bless every one.

That was a resource Davos had much less of simply because Davos had much less of everything.

For the first time since entering the Rainwood, that thought felt larger than the advantage of his dragons.

"Casualties?"

Alyn asked.

"Low."

Jon wiped rain from his face.

"Foggy Cascades barely has defenses."

"The hard part was finding everyone through the buildings."

"You fought most of the night."

Alyn looked straight at you.

"How did you know that?"

Several heads turned.

You looked back at him until his expression changed.

"I assumed it from when Jon said sunset."

Jon's mouth twitched.

"Yes, most of the night."

If Yara had been standing nearby, you could already imagine the look.

Unfortunately, she was not available to rescue you from Jon forgetting who knew what.

The Red Priest had been the dangerous part.

He had enough followers to keep fighting after most men would have reconsidered.

He also had magic.

Jon described burning missiles fed with blood from men nearby.

You had seen the red light through Janus without knowing what caused it.

"Then the rain got worse."

Jon looked toward the gray sky.

"It started pouring halfway through."

Jason gave him a flat look.

"We are in the Rainwood."

"I noticed."

Jon smiled.

"It still felt personal."

That joke bothered you more than it should have.

You'd already wondered whether a fire god genuinely had less influence in country where everything remained wet.

Now you knew enough magic to avoid assuming the idea was ridiculous.

You still had no evidence the rain had done anything except rain.

You were not going to invent an answer because the possibility was interesting.

Jon kept talking.

"The priest kept throwing fire anyway."

Then he looked toward Teba.

"Until Tulin got a proper shot."

Teba straightened a little.

"How proper?"

Jon's smile widened.

"Dark, pouring rain, longer than I would've tried."

Teba's attention sharpened completely.

"And?"

"Through the eye."

For one heartbeat, Teba's face did nothing.

Then the pride arrived before he could stop it.

Jason laughed once under his breath.

Sam looked impressed.

Jon took another drink and let Teba enjoy the answer.

"The men started calling him Sharpeye before morning."

Teba repeated it carefully.

"Sharpeye."

"You dislike it?" Jon asked.

Teba considered the name with the seriousness of somebody judging a proposed marriage.

"It is not undignified."

You looked at him.

Teba refused to look back.

Jon looked toward you instead.

"Not undignified."

You repeated the words.

The corner of Teba's mouth betrayed him.

Jason saw it and laughed.

That finished any chance of pretending this was purely a military discussion.

"Your son took Foggy Cascades and shot a Red Priest through the eye."

Jason clapped Teba on the shoulder.

"I think you are allowed to be pleased."

Teba straightened his cloak.

"I am pleased with the strategic result."

"Of course."

Jon nearly choked on his drink.

Teba ignored him and failed completely to stop smiling.

That was a better place to end the month than another map.

Cinnamonton still waited across a real river.

Davos remained deeper in the Rainwood.

His dragons could still kill armored men when everything worked.

The northern force still needed men, healers, scouts, and time.

None of that had become easy.

Your army had become better at learning before a problem could stay new for long.

People were taking opportunities without waiting for you.

Jon's strange breathing style kept spreading even when Jon himself left the army for weeks.

Janus, Jinx, and Ghost were no longer animals you occasionally borrowed for useful tricks.

You and Jon were learning how to work through them on purpose.

You could spend your sleeping hours somewhere your body had never gone and wake more rested afterward.

Most importantly, the warrior’s sense now came with you.

Months of failed attempts had turned into success above Foggy Cascades.

Teba was still pretending Sharpeye was mainly a useful military development.

Nobody around him believed that.

His smile returned every time Jon used the name.

You looked across the river toward Cinnamonton while Teba tried and failed to look properly dignified.

The river could become tomorrow's problem.

-----

Skills:

Pursuits:

Martial:

(12) Physical Form - 335/400 (+75)

(11) Westerosi Swordsmanship - 210/300 (+10)

(1) Total Concentration Breathing - 75/100 (+50)

(1) Stone Breathing - 75/100 (+50)

(12) Archery - 235/400 (+20) (Gifted)

(13) Heavy Armour - 360/500 (+50) (Prodigious)

Avocations:

(12) Equestrianism - 135/400 (+40) (Talented)

(10) Hunting - 70/200 (+40)

(10) Watercraft - 60/200 (+5) (Knack)

(7) Fishing - 65/100 (+0)

(6) Swimming - 40/100 (+0)

(6) Climbing - 60/100 (+0)

Scholarly:

Applied:

(12) Accounting - 385/400 (+25) (Prodigious)

(7) Northern Law - 95/100 (+5) (Knack)

(7) General Westerosi Law - 100/100 (+10) (Knack)

(10) Castrametation - 10/200 (+40) (Knack)

(5) Poliorcetics - 50/100 (+50)

Contextual:

(10) Mathematics - 70/200 (+15) (Knack)

(11) Northern History - 15/300 (+5) (Knack)

(8) Northern Cultures - 80/100 (+0)

(6) Westerosi History - 65/100 (+0)

(6) Westerosi Cultures - 80/100 (+5)

(4) Rainwood Lore - 50/100 (+50)

(8) Common Literacy - 40/100 (+30)

(6) Valyrian Literacy - 45/100 (+5)

Social:

Public:

(14) Management - 350/500 (+50) (Prodigious)

(9) Stewardship - 95/100 (+25) (Knack)

(12) Strategy - 390/400 (+50) (Prodigious +)

(10) Public Speaking - 140/200 (+40) (Skilled)

Personal:

(12) Interpersonal Communication - 305/400 (+35) (Skilled)

(5) Acting (Lying/Politics) - 100/100 (+10) (Incapacity)

(12) Common Speaking - 370/400 (+50) (Knack)

(11) Old Tongue Speaking - 255/300 (+15) (Knack)

(8) Valyrian Speaking - 40/100 (+5) (Knack)

Magic:

(1) Theory of Magic - 45/100 (+10)

- (1) Potentium: Heartsense + Warging - 100/100 (+50)

(20) Verdancy:

- (11) The Green Aura - 190/300 (+50) (Talented)

- - (3) The Green Touch - 45/100 (+5)

- (6) The Green Knowledge - 100/100 (+50) (Knack)

(47) Potentium:

- (1) Potentium Studies - 90/100 (+0)

- (4) Combat Intuition - 50/100 (+10)

- (2) Clairsentience - 10/100 (+0)

- - (12) Heartsense - 10/200 (+75)

- (8) Warging - 5/100 (+75) (Talented)

- - (4) Warging Theory - 55/100 (+50) (Knack)

- (3) Somatic Insight - 35/100 (+5) (Knack)

- - (6) Force Healing - 40/100 (+5) (Gifted)

- - (7) Healing Trance - 75/100 (+75) (Knack)

(15) Enchanting:

- (7) Westerosi Runes Theory - 50/100 (+0)

- (1) Westerosi Runes Practice - 100/100 (+0)

- (1) Reinforcement - 100/100 (+100)

- - (5) Fabric: Strength - 100/100 (+500)

- - (1) Fabric: Range - 100/100 (+100)

(22) Adamancy:

- (9) Armored Recuperation - 20/100 (+30)

- (5) Burden Opponent - 75/100 (+5)

- (3) Ending Blow - 100/100 (+0)

- (3) Ocular Renewal - 20/100 (+0)

- (2) Cold Resistance - 20/100 (+5)

(7) Numinance:

- (2) Revive - 100/100 (+100)

- (5) Sensor Shroud - 50/100 (+50) (Knack)

-----

Resources:

Earning: 9

Spending: 0

Banked: 141

-----

Rolls for Next Turn:

T4 = Objects/Effect at Home

L2 = Moderately Inconvenient

-----

Voting:

Main Actions: (What should we focus on in the next chapter?)

A1 - Focus on the needs, wants, and skills of the Common Soldiers and Non-Coms.

A2 - Focus on your Reputation with your Lords and underling Commanders.

A3 - Work on your Understanding of Magic with the Medcorps and Green Study Group.

A4 - Work on Physical Skills & Magics by training with and against the Martial-Minded like Jon.

A5 - Focus on your Army's Strategic and Logistical situation. (War Games, Runes, etc.)

Personal Rolls Sources:

S1 - Wikipedia (On Cooldown)

S2 - Steam Games

S3 - Wookiepedia (On Cooldown)

S4 - World Rolls List

-----

Information/Maps:

1 - Rainwood War Map

File Garden - Imgur - Catbox

Key:

Red - Baratheon Loyalist Coalition (Wulfric’s Army)

Blue - Stannis’s Rebels + R'hllor Support (Davos as Lord of the Rainwood)

2 - Long Lake Province - Lands and Governance Map (Updated)

File Garden - Imgur - Catbox

3 - The Warrior’s Sense = Heartsense

For anyone confused, Wulfric hasn’t connected this sense as magical (in the southern sense) in his brain, and considers it an instinct that trained warriors develop, especially those who have seen real combat.

He’s not wrong about that, though his version of it is decidedly on the supernatural end in terms of range and accuracy.

The breakthrough for him this chapter was figuring out how to intentionally use it while in another body.

Something he has no way of knowing is that his issues with this were due to the fact that he was basically trying to “Cast” Heartsence with Janus’s mana pool, so it sputtered out almost instantly.

The real change here is that he’s figured out his body isn’t as disconnected as he thought and so has learned to unconsciously pull on his own reserves.

Now, it’ll be a while before this will allow him to cast a fireball from Janus or anything like that (he needs to learn fireball first too), but the low-level or passive magical abilities of his like Ocular Regeneration, Cold Resistance, and Heartsense are now usable in Janus or Jinx.

(Also worth noting that in the long run, Jon could also do this with his fire magic through Ghost, though that's long-term thinking since the two of them are still fumbling around the edges of magic.)

4 - Why was Sam suddenly good at fighting?

So Sam is still bad at Sword Skills and Form/Body, but by some strange quirk of luck or fate, he’s Prodigious at Total Concentration Breathing.

It’s just that Jon got Stone Breathing and all of its prerequisites put in his head as a single unit, so he teaches TCB, and Stone Breathing at the same time because, in his head, TCB is just the way you breathe to use the Stone Breathing Sword style.

Sam is helping Jon figure out that the skills can be learned separately, and Sam isn’t any better at Stone Breathing than he was at Westerosi Swordsmanship.

But Sam’s great at TCB and has a Valyrian Steel Sword, so he's actually starting to develop into a somewhat dangerous opponent in the right circumstances.

5 - Sorry if this chapter is funky.

This week at work was crazy (extra busy, plus everyone else called out to avoid it), then as soon as it ended I got sick, so I’ve spent the weekend kinda loopy.

I did my best with the time I had, so I think the chapter is still mostly there.

But looking at screens (to do things like revise the chapter) was giving me headaches, so I'm sure I missed at least a few things, and for that I apologise.

There's also a good chance I’m gonna dip on the discussion a bit early this week thanks to the soporific effects from the cold medicine.

Hopefully it’ll pass, and I can respond more over the week, but just a heads up on why this chapter and my response might be a bit lackluster this time.

-----

Write-In/Questions:

1 - What should Berenice’s new Butterfree be named?

To propose or vote for a name, add this to your vote:

Name: The Name