House Among Chaotic Kingdoms

Votes for this Turn:

A1 - Commons - 6

A2 - Reputation - 50

A3 - Medcorps - 0

A4 - Marshal - 3

A5 - Non-Coms - 7

S1 - Wikipedia - 37

S2 - Steam - 24

S3 - Wookiepedia - 4

S4 - World - ¿1?

Heal Willas:

Yes - 22

No - 9

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Rolls for this Turn:

Personal: Wikipedia

Thanks to the Sepher Ha-Razim: The Book of Mysteries, the Church of Starry Wisdom has now been clarified, with them possessing a Magical tradition stretching back to the Bloodstone Emperor. (Planetos now has a Warlock faction!)

In order to make the jump from their lesser ranks to full priest, one must successfully make a pact with a Million Favoured One.

This roll clarified that they possess the ability to make Pacts that bind them to the conditions but also allow them to call upon the strength of the one they made the Pact with.

(So their patron doesn’t need to grant them powers.

They just need to agree, and the new priest’s Warlock-esque magic then allows them to call on whatever aspect they want, as frequently as their specific pact allows them to.)

Their long-term goal is to please Nyarlathotep enough to become a Million Favoured One, as their founding member, the Bloodstone Emperor, did.

Downside:

This setting is now confirmed to be a part of the Greater Lovecraft Mythos.

Upside:

It probably already was before this roll thanks to all the references, and now we have confirmation that it’s an extreme backwater by their standards.

With the only ones who care being a few members of the Lesser Servitor Races who are themselves only one step up from regular Humans.

Hint:

If we don't mess with the Church of Starry Wisdom, then the Lovecraft stuff should be irrelevant to us…

But they would make mighty powerful allies, however, and we know they have a temple in White Harbor…

World: Dragonlance Wiki

Thanks to The Green Lady (Kristophan), Long Lake now has a small but old tradition of making Wines.

While generally considered to be of worse taste and quality than imported Wines, they can be sent across the North far more cheaply than importing other wines, even in the times of a United Westeros.

Pre-Conquest, this would often be the only wine many had access to when far-off wars disrupted the importation of Wine to the North.

As a result, Long Lake is one of several Northern Provinces to have developed its own local Wine tradition, with Long Lake’s being one of the most robust thanks to its relative abundance.

While most Northern Wines tend to be known for either their Overlord or Local Geography (Eg: Wintertown Wine, Bolton’s Blood, Rillwine, etc.), they are rarely from a single orchard but rather treated as a side business for many farmers.

Within Long Lake Province, the greatest concentration tends to come from Clan Rito, with several of its members even managing to put on a convincing act of liking the taste…

Interestingly, Northern and especially Long Lake/Mountain Clan Wines are among the most common Exports from the North to the Lands Beyond the Wall.

Mechanical Change: +1 Resources Per Turn.

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Story:

The smile lasted almost until you reached the first wounded man.

Then the shape of the camp started feeling wrong.

There were too many bandages for an army that had supposedly been waiting around Yronwood.

Men moved with the particular exhausted urgency of people cleaning up after a fight rather than preparing for one.

Freshly damaged shields had been stacked beside wagons, several horses were being led around with wounds across their flanks, and one section of the road had become an uncomfortable procession of stretchers moving toward the healers.

You stopped smiling before anyone needed to explain why.

The first lord you properly recognized was Edmure Tully.

He was standing among several officers with a map stretched across the side of a wagon.

One rider was already leaving by the time you reached him, while another waited with obvious impatience for whatever answer Edmure owed him.

Edmure looked up when somebody called your name.

He finished giving the officer beside him an instruction before stepping away from the map.

"Lord Stark, I'm considerably happier to see you than I expected to be last week."

Edmure clasped your arm firmly, then looked past you toward the standards still arriving behind.

"You fought already, and nobody told us."

The words came out flatter than you intended.

"We did, and nobody won enough to make it useful."

Edmure's expression tightened before he continued.

"The Blackfyres came at us yesterday before your army reached the valley."

"We held our ground, they held most of theirs, and Yronwood remains exactly where it was."

That would've been irritating under ordinary circumstances.

Nothing around you looked ordinary enough for irritation to survive very long.

"Where are Joffrey and Robb right now?"

Edmure's expression told you enough before his mouth did.

"Both alive, and both currently being told to stop trying to command from their beds."

"His Grace is worse, although the maesters expect him to recover."

That was enough to start you moving toward the healers.

There were questions attached to everything Edmure had not said yet.

None of them mattered before seeing Joffrey and Robb.

You gave Edmure one sharp nod and continued through the camp.

The distance between your army and this camp yesterday had been less than half a day's ride.

That thought followed you through the wounded like something determined to become unbearable.

You had spent weeks crossing the Red Mountains at the speed of an especially determined snail.

There had been entire afternoons where nothing interesting happened beyond another argument about wagons and another report concerning Dornishmen attacking somebody farther back in the column.

You could've covered the ride easily.

A small group could've covered considerably more.

You could've been here when the fighting started.

The thought remained perfectly true despite everything wrong with it.

You were the Infantry Commander.

Your Infantry functioning without constant intervention did not mean your command had become ceremonial.

There were still hours of actual work every day, still decisions that stopped completely until you made them.

You couldn't simply abandon several thousand men for days whenever marching became boring.

You knew exactly why you had remained with the army.

That knowledge did remarkably little to improve your mood.

Joff and Robb had been wounded while you were less than half a day's ride away being responsible.

You found Berenice before you made up your mind about that.

She solved the problem by immediately making it irrelevant.

"Wash your hands before you touch anything."

Berenice didn't look away from Joffrey while speaking.

You obeyed before properly looking at either patient.

Robb was on another cot nearby with extensive bruising spreading across his chest and back.

Joffrey looked considerably worse than your cousin.

A deep cut crossed one side of his neck beneath fresh bandaging, with angry discoloration spreading farther than any ordinary wound had a right to spread.

"That doesn't look remotely under control yet."

You stepped closer as Berenice moved aside enough to let you work.

"It isn't controlled enough yet, which is why you're going to stop staring and help me."

She took your wrist and placed your hand carefully beside the injury.

"The cut itself is survivable, but his blood is considerably more problematic."

Joffrey opened one eye after hearing that.

“I'd object, but I don't want to start another argument about my bloodline.”

Berenice ignored him with the practiced patience of someone who had spent years listening to patients complain.

You reached toward the wound with your magic.

Grandfather's corruption answered your attention immediately.

There was nothing subtle about it anymore.

You knew that invasive wrongness far too well by now.

This was stronger than the blood inside Hugh.

It clung harder, pressed farther, and reacted to your attention like something actively unwilling to surrender ground.

You pushed against the corruption with more force.

The resistance tightened around the wound until you had to deliberately relax your shoulders.

“Stop trying to overpower the whole thing.”

Berenice shifted your hand slightly without looking up.

“It's pushing back harder every time.”

You concentrated harder while trying to feel everything around the corruption as well.

"Grandfather isn't the patient, so try remembering the King exists underneath him."

"Could you perhaps find a less disturbing way to phrase that?"

You took the complaint as a good sign.

Berenice started working deeper around the cut while you kept most of the magical pressure away from her.

Robb moved badly when he leaned far enough to see what you were doing.

You glanced toward the enormous yellowing bruises across his ribs.

"What in seven hells happened to you?"

Robb looked down at his own chest with considerable disapproval.

"One of Aegon's Kingsguard picked me up and threw me."

Robb deadpanned.

You stared at him for several moments.

Robb was the strongest person you knew when he properly committed himself to moving something.

"Somebody actually picked you up and threw you?"

Robb shifted carefully against the cot.

"Yes, and I recommend avoiding the experience."

His expression tightened when the movement pulled something sore.

That told you more about Aegon's Kingsguard than the word strong ever could.

A particularly powerful knight throwing an ordinary man was impressive.

Somebody manhandling Robb was something else entirely.

You filed that away while returning your attention to Joffrey's wound.

Berenice worked for another minute before looking toward Joffrey.

"How exactly did this end up happening?"

Joffrey shifted slightly against the bedding.

That movement alone was enough to tighten his expression.

"The dramatic version or the medically useful version?"

"Whichever version involves fewer unnecessary movements."

Joffrey sighed with theatrical disappointment before continuing.

“It would've sounded made up if fewer people had seen it happen…”

You looked toward him despite Berenice's earlier instruction.

Joffrey continued before you could ask.

"Two rival young Kings finally meet in the middle of a battle, while everyone nearby desperately tries to kill everyone else."

"Before things became strange, I was enjoying myself far more than was responsible.”

"Who was actually winning before that happened?"

The question escaped before you could decide whether Berenice would consider it medically relevant.

"I was winning before everything became strange."

Joffrey said it without hesitation.

"Aegon was pretty good, but I was better."

"Then several seconds disappeared completely."

You stopped pushing for half a heartbeat.

Berenice slapped two fingers against your wrist.

"Continue doing your job while he explains that."

You started pushing against the corruption again.

"What exactly do you mean by disappeared?"

Joffrey stared upward for several seconds before answering.

"One moment exists in my memory.”

The next turned out to have been several seconds later."

"There isn't anything between those two moments."

"Sure you don't remember anybody hitting you first?"

Robb asked from the other cot.

"I don't remember being distracted, stunned, struck unconscious, blinded, confused, or anything else useful."

Joffrey touched two fingers carefully near the edge of his bandage.

"I was fighting Aegon, then I was looking at his sword coming toward my neck."

"The missing part simply isn't there."

You would've preferred unconsciousness.

At least unconsciousness belonged to a collection of things people understood badly but regularly.

Missing time belonged to nothing you understood.

"What happened while you were missing those seconds?"

You kept your attention on the corruption as Joffrey answered.

"Uncle Jaime saved my life during them."

His voice lost most of the amusement.

You looked toward him again before remembering Berenice.

Joffrey continued without needing the question.

"He's dead, Wulfric."

"Oberyn Martell had already mortally wounded him before whatever happened to me."

For several seconds you couldn't find anything useful to say.

Jaime Lannister being dead should've been a fact large enough to arrive with more ceremony than that.

Instead it arrived while your hand was pressed against Joff’s neck.

"Jaime was better than Oberyn."

Robb shifted carefully before adding his own part.

"Oberyn wasn't suddenly better than Jaime."

"He was strong enough that the difference stopped being enough."

Joffrey nodded once before continuing.

"Whatever they did to Aegon's Kingsguard, they did the same to Oberyn Martell."

"Jaime had already been mortally wounded when whatever happened to me began."

"He still had Oberyn directly in front of him."

Joffrey paused there for several seconds.

"The men watching said Oberyn had given him an opening."

Joffrey swallowed carefully before continuing.

"Jaime could've killed the man who'd just mortally wounded him."

"He had one final chance to spend what strength he had left taking Oberyn with him."

Jaime was already dying because Oberyn Martell had mortally wounded him.

He still had a chance to kill Oberyn.

Then Aegon moved toward a helpless King.

Jaime chose between killing the man who had killed him and saving his nephew.

He turned his back on Oberyn instead.

He lunged at Aegon with everything he had left.

The attack wasn't enough to kill Aegon, but it forced him to react.

That reaction bought several precious seconds.

Joffrey's missing awareness returned just before the sword reached him.

"I moved enough to keep my head attached."

"Not enough to keep all the skin attached though."

"Then I managed to take two fingers."

Robb gave a quiet laugh despite himself.

Joffrey's expression became genuinely offended.

"Wrong hand, unfortunately… they were from his left."

"You almost got decapitated and you're complaining about the hand."

You couldn't keep the disbelief from your voice.

Joffrey looked completely serious about the complaint.

"If somebody gives you an opportunity to remove fingers from the enemy King, you should remove the useful ones."

Joffrey sounded entirely serious.

That, at least, was reassuringly normal.

You kept pressing against Grandfather's corruption while Berenice worked.

The contamination resisted harder whenever she disturbed the damaged tissue beneath it.

You could feel how much work she would've needed to split between both problems without you.

For several minutes, Joffrey's blood gave you something else to think about.

Then another question became impossible to ignore.

You waited until Berenice stopped moving her instruments.

"Why were you fighting Aegon personally?"

Joffrey looked toward you after the question.

You hadn't meant it as an accusation.

It still came out close enough that he understood what you were asking.

"I knew it was strategically stupid beforehand."

Joffrey looked almost annoyed with himself rather than defensive.

"That becomes important before I explain the rest."

"Father spent my childhood making the Trident sound like the proper ending to every war."

Robb's mouth twitched despite his bruising.

Joffrey continued before either of you interrupted.

"Then Aegon was standing there with a sword, and apparently I remain enough of a Stormlander for that to become persuasive."

"I knew perfectly well that Kings have people specifically so they don't need to solve succession wars by stabbing each other personally."

"And then you stabbed him personally anyway."

You kept your hand against his neck.

"I attempted to do so very impressively."

Joffrey closed his eyes again.

"Father would've been delighted if I'd killed him there."

"He'd also be furious if I nearly got myself killed doing it, got Uncle Jaime killed saving me, learned exactly why it was stupid, and then tried again."

That sounded completely reasonable coming from Joff.

It also sounded so thoroughly like Joffrey discussing Robert that you barely noticed anything strange about it.

You had heard Joffrey criticize his father before.

You had also heard him use Robert's judgment as though the dead King’s approval was the most valuable thing in the known world…

To Joffrey, there was no contradiction at all.

You returned your attention to the wound before Berenice needed to correct you again.

Aegon's Kingsguard had displayed strength beyond anything ordinary men should've possessed.

Oberyn had done the same thing himself.

Men who had expected elite knights had discovered that skill wasn't the only advantage waiting for them.

Joffrey's wound added another answer.

The Grandfather corruption inside it had not appeared because Aegon happened to be standing near somebody else's cultists.

As far as you were concerned, Aegon was personally involved.

You could call him a Blackfyre and a follower of Grandfather without needing to wonder if those were separate problems anymore.

What you couldn't explain was the missing time.

Neither could Joffrey or anyone else.

The missing time remained exactly that.

Missing.

The conversation grew quieter as Berenice's work became more delicate.

Joffrey eventually returned to Jaime without anyone asking.

"We weren't especially close to each other."

He said it while looking toward the ceiling.

"Uncle Jaime cared about me, but that isn't the same thing."

"I knew of him more than I ever knew what to do with him."

Nobody interrupted Joffrey while he spoke.

Berenice kept working while you kept the corruption pressed back.

"He spent the last thing he had saving me."

Joffrey swallowed carefully before continuing.

"He didn't even spend it killing the man who'd just killed him."

"Everyone saw him choose me instead."

There wasn't a useful answer to that.

You could tell Joff that Jaime had made his choice freely.

Joff already knew that perfectly well.

You could tell him Jaime had considered protecting his King worth more than revenge.

That was exactly the problem he was having.

So you stayed beside him and kept Grandfather out of his blood.

Berenice finally relaxed sometime later that afternoon.

That was the first sign you trusted.

"Good, hold it there for another minute."

She began closing what she was willing to close.

"The corruption isn't gone, but it isn't winning anymore."

"His Grace should remain irritating for the foreseeable future."

Joffrey opened his eyes again after hearing that.

"I appreciate the confidence in my recovery."

Robb looked considerably better simply by comparison.

His body had taken an enthusiastic beating, but bruises were at least honest about what they were.

Joffrey would need weeks before fully recovering.

Robb would need considerably less time.

After spending months imagining finally seeing both of them again, your reunion consisted mostly of preventing Joff’s blood from finding religion.

The first few days at Yronwood developed around recovery.

Edmure continued running the Boneway army while Robb was ordered to avoid anything more strenuous than walking around and Joffrey discovered that being King didn't exempt him from Berenice.

Edmure's command looked boring.

That was the impressive part.

Nobody behaved as though a vaguely suitable lord had been shoved into authority because the real commanders were unavailable.

Messages went directly through Edmure when necessary.

Officers expected decisions from him without hesitation.

He coordinated with Barristan, argued about deployments, handled reports, and did all the boring work required to keep several thousand armed men from becoming a crowd.

When Robb started returning to lighter duties, some things moved naturally toward him.

When Joffrey could tolerate sitting through meetings without Berenice threatening him, other things moved toward the King.

Edmure did not disappear when either happened.

The Boneway force had developed around all three of them.

They did different things, but the structure had enough depth that losing two at once hadn't left an empty command tent.

That alone improved your opinion of Edmure before you ever crossed swords with him.

It also made the Boneway lords considerably easier to approach than you had expected.

Their opinions of you hadn't remained frozen while you were in Prince's Pass.

Vulture's Roost had already made that impossible.

The Boneway army had been struggling there before your raid gave them the opening they needed.

You didn't need to remind anyone of that because quite a few of them had personally benefited.

That had been sitting in the back of their minds for months.

Kingsgrave arrived afterward as another useful success.

So did months of reports from Prince's Pass, a functioning Infantry, lords who had actually campaigned beside you, and increasingly less ridiculous stories about what the Old Gods were doing around your army.

Apparently an allegedly sinister Northern lord became harder to dismiss when several respected Southerners insisted he was useful and the mountains kept becoming greener around him.

The opportunity was exactly as good as it had looked from the road.

So you made a deliberate effort to use it.

Infantry work remained Infantry work throughout the month.

You still spent hours every day handling reports, officers, discipline, replacements, training, and the collection of problems which had successfully climbed through every layer beneath you.

The difference came after required work ended.

You started accepting invitations you would've previously ignored.

You trained with lords from other armies.

You stayed for meals with them afterward.

You participated in war games, tactical discussions, and small gatherings where nobody urgently needed Lord Wulfric Stark to fix anything.

That last category remained the strangest.

Joffrey helped considerably throughout the first week.

For the first several days he was physically incapable of doing much more than talking anyway.

Berenice had confined Joffrey to bed.

Unfortunately, try as she might she could not confine him from politics.

Conversations kept mysteriously developing problems you knew how to solve.

A Crownlands lord complained about how difficult it was to keep replacement men integrated into veteran companies.

Joffrey looked toward you and asked how your Infantry handled it.

Another discussion drifted toward keeping units useful when officers were wounded.

Joffrey somehow never forgot which piece made you look competent.

A lord who had previously treated your obsession with sergeants as faintly embarrassing ended the conversation asking how often your company officers actually consulted them.

Joffrey never told anyone you were brilliant.

He simply kept placing useful parts of you where other people could see them.

That was probably more effective anyway.

Your first proper spar with Edmure happened during one of those gatherings.

Several Boneway lords were training together, and you had no reason to refuse once somebody suggested the match.

You knew Edmure was good before the first exchange.

Knowing that and experiencing it were separate things.

His technique was cleaner than yours.

His footwork wasted less movement, his recoveries were quicker, and he noticed openings early enough that he kept forcing you to close openings instead of creating your own.

Though you were good enough to make him work for it.

That became obvious from the way the watching lords stopped carrying side conversations.

Edmure still beat you cleanly enough.

He landed one hit cleanly enough that continuing required dishonesty.

You lowered your weapon after the clean hit.

Edmure did the same while breathing harder than he had when you started.

"That was considerably less comfortable than I expected."

He offered his forearm after saying it.

"You still won without needing much comfort."

You clasped his arm before stepping back.

The result pleased the watching Boneway lords considerably more than it pleased you.

They already knew exactly how good Edmure was.

Now they knew roughly where to put you.

Apparently losing well could be useful reputation work.

The fight kept circulating after the training ended.

You heard it again over food two nights later when one older knight started complaining that watching Barristan train had stopped being educational years ago.

“Watching Selmy mostly teaches you what you can't do.”

The knight drank before pointing toward Edmure.

"Watching those two was useful because I could actually understand what they were doing."

Another lord laughed before answering him.

"You mean you could imagine doing it yourself."

The knight remained entirely unashamed.

"Exactly, which is an important quality in a lesson."

The conversation wandered through fighters everyone knew.

Barristan had the combination nobody sensible expected to reproduce.

Jon and Joffrey had enough talent that their age stopped being a useful measure.

The Blackfish represented a different kind of problem.

A talented man with decades of experience eventually stopped giving younger fighters enough mistakes to exploit.

Someone like Brynden Tully could reasonably beat both you and Edmure without needing to be a miraculous prodigy.

You and Edmure sat lower than all of that.

The interesting part was that nobody meant the observation as an insult.

You were both very good fighters already.

You were both still young enough to improve substantially.

You both had years of training and real war behind you without enough experience to erase every other difference.

Edmure was the more skilled swordsman.

You had physical advantages which mattered under different circumstances.

Nobody had much reason to explore those circumstances over dinner.

The western army arrived before the subject came back.

Their banners began appearing along the roads near the end of your first week at Yronwood.

Willas Tyrell looked worse in person than any written report had managed.

He was upright on a horse, which was already better than he had apparently been weeks earlier.

That did not make him healthy.

He looked like a man spending too much effort convincing his own body to remain useful.

Samwell Tarly rode close enough to the command group that nobody could mistake him for an attendant.

He still looked profoundly unlike most of the men around him.

Garlan Tyrell had the opposite problem.

If somebody had commissioned a tapestry titled Gallant Reach Knight Arrives at War, they could've saved money by simply hanging Garlan against the wall.

Handsome, well armored, comfortable on horseback, and immediately surrounded by men who visibly liked him.

The impression became more complicated over the next two days.

Willas received the broad questions.

Sam received everything which required remembering six different problems simultaneously.

Garlan received most of the people.

When formations needed arranging, Garlan was there.

When soldiers needed somebody visible and confident, Garlan was there.

When somebody wanted to know whether the western army could support a particular supply demand while moving three units through two roads on different days, the question somehow migrated toward Sam.

Willas sat in the middle of those functions whenever his body allowed him.

You could see why the army had struggled when he collapsed.

Garlan was the man everyone naturally looked toward.

He was also cautious enough around broader strategy that decisions slowed when nobody better was available.

Sam understood far more of what Willas had intended.

Understanding a plan and making several thousand people accept that you were now the person giving it were different skills.

Willas had spent his recovery making each man practice the part he was worst at.

Seeing Willas made your earlier question impossible to ignore.

You found Joffrey later that afternoon.

He was sitting through a small meeting rather than lying through one now.

Berenice still had enough authority to prevent him from pretending that meant full recovery.

"I think we can help Willas recover faster."

You waited until the other lords had left.

Joffrey looked toward you immediately after hearing that.

"With whatever remains from the poison?"

"Berenice is better against Grandfather corruption than his healers."

"I've gotten considerably better at pushing hostile magic back too."

Joffrey considered that for several seconds.

Then he nodded after reaching the obvious conclusion.

"Good, but don't walk into his tent and heal him."

You frowned at him immediately.

"That seems unnecessarily inefficient even for politics."

Joffrey smiled slightly at your reaction.

"Willas Tyrell was one of the most important men rebelling against me a few months ago."

"If Lord Wulfric Stark privately decides to give him powerful magical healing, people will decide that means something."

"It means he's one of our commanders and he's sick."

"Yes, which is exactly why you should heal him."

Joffrey leaned back carefully before continuing.

"It should mean exactly what you just said when everyone else sees it too."

You waited for the rest of his explanation.

Joffrey gave it without making you ask.

"I'll ask you publicly during the memorial."

"If the King orders one loyal lord to help another royal commander, you're doing your duty."

"And if I decide to do it myself?"

"Then people get to spend several weeks arguing about whose friend you've become."

That sounded exhausting enough to justify avoiding.

You nodded after considering the problem.

"I'll wait until you ask me publicly."

Joffrey looked pleased with that answer.

"Excellent, because managing your reputation becomes much easier when you occasionally let me help."

You suspected he had been waiting years to say that.

The opportunity came when all three armies held a combined memorial.

There were enough dead that pretending the gathering existed only for Jaime would've been insulting.

Notable deaths from all three armies were named.

Standards were lowered across the gathering.

Far too many of those names came from the battle you had just missed.

Jaime still stood above most of them because Kingsguard, family, and circumstance made ignoring him impossible.

Nobody needed Joffrey to invent a heroic ending.

Too many people had seen what happened.

Jaime Lannister had been mortally wounded by Oberyn Martell.

He had still possessed a final opportunity to kill the man who had dealt the wound.

Instead he turned away from Oberyn and spent his remaining strength saving his King and nephew.

That version moved through the armies quickly because it was simple, true, and exactly the sort of death people remembered.

You suspected Jaime himself would've found parts of the resulting conversation irritating.

The discussion of his empty white cloak began before the memorial had completely ended.

You heard several possible names mentioned quietly.

Then somebody mentioned Jon as another possibility.

You looked toward him before you could stop yourself.

Jon had apparently heard the same thing because his expression suggested he was reconsidering the advantages of standing farther away from conversations.

Kingsguard and Jon Snow belonged strangely together.

You had no idea what to do with those things placed beside each other.

It was flattering in several obvious ways.

It was also permanent in several less pleasant ones.

It was politically enormous and personally complicated.

It also involved your cousin swearing away several categories of future which most men treated as rather important.

Fortunately, nobody expected Joffrey to decide immediately.

Joffrey spoke after the names of the dead had been honored.

He stood without help, although you had enough recent experience to recognize that standing and being fully recovered were not the same thing.

Most people watching couldn't tell, which was probably the point.

He spoke first about the dead.

Then he deliberately turned toward the living.

Reachmen stood beside Crownlanders who would've tried killing each other months earlier.

Men who had rebelled now stood beneath the same royal standards as people who had fought to keep them down.

Joffrey didn't pretend none of that happened.

He simply refused to let yesterday's rebellion become more important than today's enemy.

Aegon wanted the realm and Grandfather wanted even worse things.

Whatever arguments Reachmen, Riverlanders, Stormlanders, Northmen, Crownlanders, and everyone else had with one another, none of them improved by allowing corrupted armies to win.

Joffrey made cooperation sound less like forgiving every grievance and more like possessing enough sense to survive them.

You'd seen him do things like this before.

It still impressed you how easily he could become exactly the King a particular group needed.

Near the end, he turned toward the Springlords.

Their work against Grandfather had already become difficult to ignore.

Joffrey praised the healers who had kept men alive after ordinary medicine stopped being enough.

Then he mentioned you directly before everyone.

He didn't make you sound like a prophet.

That was considerate of him.

He said you had repeatedly shown an unusual ability to suppress the lingering magical corruption inside wounded men.

Then he made the request you had already agreed to hear.

"Lord Wulfric Stark, I ask that you extend that work to the western army."

"I would also have you personally assist Commander Willas Tyrell wherever your ability can help his recovery."

You gave Joffrey the public acceptance he had arranged.

Now every lord watching could call it duty instead of friendship.

Joffrey had taken an act you would've performed because somebody sick needed healing and wrapped it in enough politics that nobody could easily weaponize the result.

You weren't certain whether to find that reassuring or mildly terrifying.

The Springlords began moving through the western wounded over the following days.

Their impact spread faster than any formal announcement.

Reach healers started asking questions about their methods.

Soldiers started comparing recoveries across different units.

Men who had spent months treating Grandfather tainted wounds without Springlords suddenly had people nearby who had already spent months learning exactly that problem.

The western army noticed the difference quickly.

Willas required something more concentrated than ordinary treatment.

You joined Berenice in his quarters with Sam and Garlan already waiting.

Willas was awake when you first arrived.

That lasted barely long enough for greetings.

Berenice decided she wanted him resting rather than contributing to his own diagnosis.

Willas gave Berenice the look of a commander unused to being overruled, then obeyed.

Sam had covered a nearby table with notes.

He started explaining before Berenice finished arranging what she needed.

"The wine itself was never poisoned."

Sam looked directly toward you.

"The poison was applied to the rim of the cup."

"We confirmed that from the remaining bottle and everyone else who drank from it."

Berenice glanced toward the papers beside Sam.

"You know what kind of poison caused this?"

"The family, but not the exact preparation."

Sam pulled one sheet forward.

"The symptoms fit several related poisons used when prolonged weakness is more useful than immediate death."

"They can kill, especially with enough exposure, but surviving victims often remain debilitated for months."

That matched what you had already heard.

"The dose doesn't work with the symptoms."

He tapped the paper with one finger.

"Every comparable case I found involved far more exposure."

"One victim drank most of a poisoned bottle, while another was dosed repeatedly across several meals."

"And Willas only touched one poisoned cup rim."

You looked toward the sleeping commander.

"Exactly, and that difference is too large."

Sam became more animated immediately.

"Even allowing for individual differences, that shouldn't produce this severity for this long."

"Either I've identified the wrong family despite nearly every symptom matching, or something made a small dose behave like a much larger one."

Berenice considered Willas rather than the notes.

"How much larger would it need to act?"

"Enough that I stopped believing ordinary concentration explained it."

Sam answered without hesitation.

That gave Berenice something useful to investigate.

She placed one hand against Willas and began feeling through the damage.

You did the same with your magic.

At first there was only the familiar difficulty of reaching into a body already full of problems.

Then something pushed back against your attention.

It was not Grandfather.

The distinction was immediate once you found it.

Grandfather's corruption had developed a familiar invasive weight.

This felt different in almost every detail.

It was still wrong and still hostile.

It was still forcing Willas toward a condition his body was trying to leave.

Berenice's eyes opened after finding it herself.

"That's definitely a magical effect inside him."

Sam leaned forward immediately.

"Is it the same as Grandfather?"

You answered before Berenice needed to.

"It doesn't feel anything like Grandfather's corruption."

"But it's doing something similar inside him."

Sam looked from you to Berenice.

His concern increased at almost the same speed as his satisfaction.

"Then the dose estimate was actually right."

He looked back at his notes.

"The poison was being reinforced by something."

"That explains why the symptoms stayed too severe for the exposure."

"It explains the mismatch in your records."

Berenice corrected him without looking away from Willas.

"It doesn't tell us what this magic is."

"Knowing one answer usually just creates better problems."

Sam grinned.

Apparently Sam was well acquainted with better problems.

You pushed against the unfamiliar magical resistance.

It immediately pushed back against you.

The sensation was wrong in a different way from Grandfather, but the task underneath was familiar enough.

Something harmful was forcing itself into a body.

You wanted it gone from Willas.

So you pushed harder against it.

Berenice adjusted her attention around your effort.

Her shoulders relaxed slightly after several breaths.

"Keep doing exactly what you're doing now."

She moved one hand lower along Willas's side.

"Whatever it is, you're reducing how hard I have to fight it."

"That part I understand extremely well."

You kept the magical pressure steady against it.

The realization came slowly enough that you almost missed it.

You weren't good at this because Grandfather was Grandfather.

You were good at it because Grandfather had given you months of practice forcing hostile magic away from injured bodies.

This was completely different magic from that.

Your experience still applied to the problem.

Meaning could wait.

Willas couldn't, and Berenice would've said so more loudly.

The conversation around you became more complicated.

Sam had enough specific poison knowledge to keep giving Berenice information she didn't have.

Berenice had enough medical knowledge to repeatedly take Sam somewhere he hadn't been.

The result moved faster than either one explaining things independently.

"If the reinforcement has been maintaining the weakness, should his pulse be responding this quickly once it drops?"

Sam asked after Berenice changed something.

"Not from that alone, given his condition."

Berenice pressed her fingers against Willas again.

"His body has been compensating for weeks, and removing one burden doesn't erase everything those weeks already did."

"Then some of the symptoms should persist after the poison stops actively worsening them."

"Exactly, which means recovery still matters afterward."

Berenice gave Sam an approving glance.

By the time you caught up, Sam was already partway through the next question.

That felt more acceptable once you looked toward Garlan.

Garlan had been following at the beginning.

You could identify the exact point where that stopped.

His questions started arriving several steps behind the conversation.

Berenice would answer one, and Garlan's expression would make clear that the answer had introduced two additional things he didn't understand.

He paced from one side of Willas's bed to the other.

He checked his brother whenever he could.

He stopped himself from interrupting when Berenice was doing something delicate.

Then Sam and Berenice disappeared into another exchange about delayed symptoms.

Garlan looked toward you with obvious concern.

You realized with considerable relief that you were not remotely the least informed person in the room.

"Is he actually getting better right now?"

Garlan asked after waiting long enough that the question clearly hurt.

"Yes, he is improving under the treatment."

Berenice answered him immediately.

"Then I'll continue pretending the rest of this makes sense."

Garlan returned to his pacing.

Willas was unconscious during most of this.

Garlan was the brother standing closest to him.

He could've made ignorance into authority if he wanted.

Instead he trusted Sam when Sam understood something better, and he trusted Berenice and you to do work he couldn't follow.

Admitting ignorance was harder than pretending to understand.

You respected Garlan more for managing it.

The treatment lasted long enough that your arms started aching from holding the same position.

The magic resisting you weakened gradually beneath the pressure.

Berenice took advantage of every change she could.

By the time she finally told you to stop, Willas remained pale, exhausted, poisoned, and considerably better.

Nobody announced any sort of miracle afterward.

Sam revised his estimates instead.

"If this improvement holds, we're not looking at the same recovery anymore."

He stared down at his notes while recalculating.

“I can't give you a date yet, but my old estimates of his recovery are already wrong.”

Garlan exhaled slowly after hearing that.

That was the first time he had looked relaxed since you entered.

Sam gained another problem along with the better prediction.

He knew the dose wasn't wrong anymore.

Something magical had amplified the poison.

Nobody in the room knew what.

That question could survive until somebody actually had an answer.

Willas's body couldn't wait that long.

Once all three armies were together, the camp finally found a rhythm.

For once everyone had enough access to everyone else that old problems could become ordinary conversations.

You spent most mornings with the Infantry.

You spent afternoons training with lords from armies you had barely seen for months.

Some evenings disappeared into meals where nothing caught fire and nobody asked you to command anything.

You no longer spent every meal wondering why you were there.

The reputation shift showed itself in small ways.

A lord who would've once answered you politely began finding you first.

Another asked what you thought about a deployment without waiting for Joffrey to create the opening.

People discussed Kingsgrave around you without the strange carefulness of men deciding whether praise would become politically awkward.

Joffrey still helped when he saw an opportunity.

Increasingly, he didn't need to help every time.

Teba brought another part of the month to you during an ordinary command update.

He had been working on the support structure long enough that several of the temporary solutions were becoming actual procedures.

He sounded pleased with the overall direction.

Then he started talking about Samwell Tarly.

"Lord Tarly has been considerably more useful than I expected."

Teba shifted several papers across the table.

"He notices problems I would've spent another month discovering."

"That sounds like extremely high praise from you."

"It is, which means you should avoid making me repeat it publicly."

Teba pointed toward the first page.

"Three different people technically owned this supply problem."

"In practice, that meant nobody owned the final result."

You looked through the listed responsibilities.

None of them were individually absurd.

Together they created exactly what Teba meant.

Everyone could honestly claim he had done his part while the overall job still failed.

"Sam noticed that problem immediately after seeing it?"

"Before I finished explaining why we were having trouble."

Teba moved to another example.

"These reports were travelling through four people before reaching the officer who actually needed them."

"And how many people handle them now?"

"Two people, with one copy sent sideways because another unit occasionally needs the same information."

Teba had several more examples ready.

Two groups had been solving the same wagon shortage independently.

One process existed entirely because a particular clerk remembered to tell three different officers what happened next.

A western procedure had solved a problem Prince's Pass had not yet formally recognized.

By the third example, Teba sounded personally offended that the problems had survived long enough for Sam to find them.

"How much of the western system are you copying?"

You looked up from the papers.

"Very little of it gets copied directly."

Teba answered the question quickly.

"The western army isn't ours, and their people, authority, roads, habits, and existing officers are different."

He tapped the first page again.

"Lord Tarly is useful because he understands why these arrangements work."

"You're useful because you understand how to steal the useful part."

Teba gave you a long look afterward.

"I would've preferred the word adapt."

"Steal is shorter and means nearly enough."

That earned the smallest smile from Teba.

The distinction mattered anyway.

Sam was the specialist in the conversation.

He saw things Teba hadn't known enough to notice.

Teba was enough of a generalist that expert advice didn't expire when the expert left.

He could understand the reason beneath a suggestion and fit that reason into something different.

That was its own kind of expertise.

"Is the structure actually stable now?"

You gathered the pages together.

"Much more stable than it was before."

Teba paused before continuing.

"It also isn't finished, and I don't expect it to be soon."

"I'm building something that works well enough for somebody better suited to eventually own it."

That sounded exactly like Teba to you.

He had started because five different systems collided and somebody needed to understand all five well enough to stop the wreckage.

He wasn't quietly declaring himself Lord of Wagons forever.

Prince's Pass still had logistics spread across Teba, officers, healers, your own Infantry structure, and several other specialists.

It worked better every week.

It still looked noticeably less clean than some of the arrangements you were seeing from the other armies.

You didn't need another problem attached to that observation.

Teba was already solving the part directly in front of you.

The Green lords invited you back a few days later.

Earlier meetings had often happened because you wanted explanations from them.

Now they were sending for you because their own project had developed enough that they wanted you involved.

You arrived to find several familiar faces, several unfortunate plants, and Samwell Tarly talking fast enough that one Reach lord had started writing before Sam finished his sentence.

Sam stopped when he finally noticed you.

"Good, we can actually test this properly now."

He moved toward the tables.

One of the older lords laughed beside him.

"Lord Tarly has decided we weren't being nearly irritating enough about your plants."

"That isn't what I actually said."

Sam looked genuinely concerned about the accusation.

"It was still the practical effect."

The lord sounded delighted by it.

Their old experiments had already been useful.

The new arrangement was considerably better organized.

They no longer wanted one plant blessed and another plant left alone.

Sam had helped separate several things everyone previously bundled together.

One plant would remain outside the range where your presence appeared to matter.

Another would remain inside that range without you touching it.

A third would be touched while you deliberately said nothing.

A fourth would receive the familiar spoken blessing with touch and intent together.

Another group wanted distance tested after the first comparison produced enough information to justify making the problem more complicated.

For once, you approved of delaying unnecessary complication.

They had also agreed on fixed observation times.

Every six hours, someone checked the plants.

The observer recorded the same things each time.

Height, new growth, leaves, water, weather, condition, distance, and exact treatment all went into the same format.

It was less exciting than new magic and considerably more useful than four people remembering things differently.

You understood why that mattered immediately.

You performed the first set of treatments while several people wrote.

Then Sam started producing future problems for everyone.

"Words and intention are still combined in the fourth condition."

He pointed toward the blessed plant.

"If it differs from simple touch, we won't know which caused the difference."

"Then we separate those things next."

One of the Reach lords nodded.

"Wulfric says the words without intending the blessing."

"And another receives the intent without words."

Sam looked delighted by the suggestion.

"Then repetition becomes useful to test too."

"If one blessing matters, does a second do anything?"

Someone else raised distance as another problem.

Another lord wondered whether time near you before the test would contaminate the comparison.

Within minutes, the group had more future experiments than available plants.

At least they were running short of plants instead of ideas…

They had been poking around the Green's edges before Sam arrived.

Sam had given them a better stick.

His enthusiasm also made much more sense here.

Sam was not broadly charismatic in the same way as Garlan.

Garlan could speak with almost anyone and make the conversation feel easy.

Sam could take one person who genuinely cared about the same subject and make two hours disappear.

One answer gave him three more questions.

One good observation seemed to make him physically more awake.

The Green lords liked him because they were already doing the same thing at a slower speed.

You could easily imagine somebody who didn't care about experimental plants searching desperately for an exit.

That made the contrast with Garlan considerably funnier when you saw Sam training several days later.

Garlan looked completely at home in the yard.

Sam did not look remotely comfortable there.

He held the sword correctly enough to show he'd been taught, and awkwardly enough to show none of it was natural:

Garlan corrected his stance.

Sam corrected it much too far.

Garlan moved one of his feet.

Sam immediately asked why that movement mattered.

Garlan explained the reason without losing patience.

Sam then asked what happened if the opponent responded in three different ways.

"You can worry about those after you stop putting your weight there."

Garlan nudged Sam's leg into a better position.

"But if I know where the response leads, I can understand why this position is better."

"You don't need to understand every sword stroke before you make one."

Garlan raised his practice blade.

"Stop trying to solve the whole fight and hit me."

Sam tried to follow that instruction immediately.

The attempt would've concerned you more if Garlan weren't obviously prepared for every bad thing Sam could accidentally do.

Garlan parried without any visible effort.

"Again, and this time try hitting me before you reconsider the philosophy of it."

Sam looked a bit offended but obeyed him.

Sam was still terrible. Garlan was still patient.

Apparently both considered this progress.

That was probably part of why Willas had managed to build something useful around both of them.

The Green conversations kept happening around everything else.

Not every meeting needed you physically present.

Enough of them did that Sam and you eventually reached the problem underneath several earlier conversations about Southern magic.

It happened while people were arguing about what other kinds of practice should be compared with the Green.

Sam made a distinction you didn't understand.

You asked why the distinction mattered.

He answered by talking about the Seven.

At first that seemed like a worse explanation.

"The Smith isn't only about smithing itself."

Sam drew one rough line across a page.

"He's productive work and making much more broadly."

"Then those domains divide again underneath him."

He started adding smaller branches beneath the first.

"Trades can divide from other kinds of work."

"Crafts divide again into narrower groups."

"Then the material or kind of craft starts mattering."

He kept working downward through the structure.

Woodworking led toward carpentry.

Carpentry divided again into different sorts of carpenters.

Those divided again into particular specialties and kinds of work.

The exact branches didn't matter nearly as much as how casually Sam kept creating them.

"So you keep dividing until the thing fits somewhere."

You looked over the growing structure.

"More or less, although people argue about particular boundaries."

Sam considered the drawing before continuing.

"Knowing what kind of thing something is tells you what other things it properly belongs beside."

That sounded familiar enough to be wrong in an interesting way.

You started explaining how Northerners approached the same problem.

The Old Gods did not need one branch to own a thing.

A practice could matter because of animals, ancestry, place, profession, tradition, family, magic, or personal relationships simultaneously.

Those overlaps were useful information themselves.

If two things shared several important qualities, the resemblance told you something even when nobody thought they were identical.

Sam listened carefully to your explanation.

Then you finally found an example concrete enough to expose the difference.

"Take someone who trains dogs for work."

You held up one finger.

"Then someone who's spent his whole life with one dog and understands it extremely well."

"Then a warg working through a dog."

Sam nodded slowly after considering all three.

"Those are three very different things."

"Yes, but they're also obviously related."

That answer made both of you stop.

A few months earlier, you would've assumed the disagreement came from Southerners refusing to see the relationship.

Sam clearly did see the relationship.

That wasn't the problem between the two models.

The problem was that seeing the relationship didn't make him put them together.

You tried following his structure instead.

"The trainer is probably somewhere beneath the Smith."

"That's close enough for what we're discussing."

Sam gestured for you to continue.

"Learned work, training, probably some branch beneath trades."

You thought about the second example.

"The companion might go somewhere beneath the Maiden."

"Affection, companionship, care, closeness all seem closer to that."

"Not exactly how I'd place every part of it."

Sam looked at the page rather than hesitating.

"But you're following the right structure, so keep going."

You moved to the last example.

"And a warg might fall beneath the Stranger."

"Magic, skinchanging, and things Southerners don't like putting among ordinary life."

"The theology is more complicated than that."

Sam's correction came easily.

"But for this argument, yes, that's the important point."

"The three don't have to meet again beneath one aspect."

That landed much harder than expected.

All three could involve a man understanding a dog unusually well.

A Northerner could treat that overlap as useful information.

A Southerner could agree with every similarity and still believe the three belonged to fundamentally different kinds of reality.

Trainer under the Smith for the example.

Companion beneath another aspect.

Warg beneath another one entirely.

They might only properly rejoin when you climbed almost all the way back toward the Seven as one whole.

That was not merely Southerners liking categories more.

You had already understood that part.

It was Southerners allowing two very similar looking things to remain fundamentally separate because the categories underneath them were different.

Your old model had been wrong in a much more interesting way.

Sam appeared to be having the opposite problem.

"So when you compare those three examples, you aren't saying they're different versions of one practice."

"No, that's not what I'm claiming at all."

You shook your head.

"I'm saying the overlap itself tells me something."

"If people can learn to understand animals through several different kinds of relationship, that matters even if the relationships aren't the same."

Sam stared down at his branching page.

"That explains several conversations which annoyed me."

"Only several conversations annoyed you that way?"

You couldn't resist asking.

Sam gave you a wounded look afterward.

You still didn’t have the answer, but at least now you knew what questions you should be asking…

One of the older problems returned when ordinary Infantry work brought you into the men's section of camp.

The actual command problem barely mattered.

Two companies disagreed about a training rotation.

Their officers had already solved most of it by the time you arrived.

You confirmed the arrangement and spoke with the relevant sergeants.

The command problem ended quickly.

Yet it seems your visit hadn't.

The men around you apparently expected something else.

One soldier shifted over beside a game already underway and cleared space without being asked.

Another man came back from the cookfires and looked toward you.

"We're eating in a little while, my lord."

The invitation was casual enough that refusing shouldn't have mattered.

That was exactly what made it harder.

You looked toward the open place beside the game.

Someone had already moved his cup aside to make room for you.

For a moment, you could've simply sat down.

There was no urgent lord waiting with a dying child or collapsing army.

You had promised several lords that you would join them that afternoon.

They were people whose opinion of you had been poor for years and was finally changing.

That mattered too.

Knowing that didn't make the empty place beside the soldiers less inviting.

Hugh's joke came back without needing permission.

Hugh's joke had been getting less funny every month…

You hated how much truth had accumulated inside the joke.

The Infantry worked perfectly well without you sitting around its fires.

The people were less automatic than the institution.

You had spent months learning names, eating with them, training beside them, and becoming familiar enough that your absence could be noticed.

You could stay today.

You wanted to stay today.

That still wouldn't make your decision to focus on the lords this month wrong.

A real problem did not become the only real problem simply because it hurt more when somebody offered you a place beside the fire.

You had chosen to spend this month repairing relationships you had neglected for years.

Walking away from that priority the moment another neglected relationship became painful would not make you more responsible.

It would only mean you were letting whichever guilt stood closest choose for you.

You looked back toward the waiting place.

"Not today, but thank you for asking."

The disappointment was small enough that nobody would've called it disappointment.

The soldier only nodded before turning back toward the others.

Someone moved his cup into the empty space again.

Nobody complained, which did nothing to make the empty place easier to leave.

You still had to make yourself walk away.

Sergeant Hugh had not invented his joke from nothing.

That did not mean choosing Reputation this month had been wrong.

It meant choices continued being choices after they became sensible.

You left for the lordly gathering anyway.

You still thought about the empty place while you walked toward the lords…

Joffrey turned that particular gathering into something stranger by discovering you had never seen the sea.

He stared at you for long enough that you wondered whether he thought you were joking.

"You've crossed half the realm by now."

Joffrey finally looked offended on geography's behalf.

"I've crossed parts of the realm which weren't the sea."

You saw nothing unreasonable about that answer.

"You've been within riding distance of several seas."

"Apparently I was busy doing other things."

Robb laughed before Joffrey pointed at you.

"No, we're fixing this problem today."

Joffrey knew a place where the Sea of Dorne could be seen properly without turning the trip into another military operation.

The idea somehow turned into a group outing.

Jon came with the group as well.

Robb came now that his ribs had stopped making every ride miserable.

Teba and Tulin joined along with several other lords who had become familiar enough over the month that nobody needed to justify the invitation.

The result was less an expedition than several hours of aristocrats finding somewhere pleasant enough to stop thinking about Yronwood.

You rode together for most of the trip.

Then people separated into smaller conversations and drifted back together whenever food, drink, or a particularly good view gave them a reason.

Joff spent much of the time near you because he was Joff.

Nobody treated that as politically significant.

The sea itself made the trip worthwhile before anyone started talking.

Long Lake was enormous.

You had grown up around enough water that size alone shouldn't have surprised you.

The Sea of Dorne still behaved differently from a lake.

The horizon never closed properly in the distance.

There was no far shore waiting somewhere beyond your ability to make out details.

There was simply more water until distance stopped being useful.

You understood intellectually that land existed beyond it.

That knowledge did very little to make the amount of water look reasonable.

For several minutes you simply stood and watched.

Joff let you stare in awe for several minutes, possibly his most considerate political decision all month.

The peace survived until Teba and Tulin produced wine.

Tulin handed you a cup with the solemnity of someone sharing a treasured local tradition.

You drank enough to discover your mistake.

Every part of your mouth objected immediately.

You stopped yourself from spitting it toward the Sea of Dorne by a margin small enough that Tulin noticed.

Tulin managed dignity until he saw your face.

Teba lasted another heartbeat before laughing at you.

You looked from father to son with growing suspicion.

"This is absolutely terrible wine you're serving."

You stared down at the cup.

"You haven't developed the proper local taste."

Tulin sounded deeply offended in exactly the right way.

"Does the proper taste involve losing several parts of my tongue?"

You tried another cautious mouthful.

A second taste proved the first had not been hasty.

Teba took his own drink with admirable dignity.

"Clan Rito produces a great deal of Long Lake wine."

"Most respectable people understand its qualities."

"You started laughing before I even swallowed."

You pointed that out immediately.

"Respectability and honesty remain completely separate virtues."

Teba's expression stayed perfectly composed.

That answer told you most of what you needed to know.

Apparently Long Lake had spent generations collectively agreeing to pretend this was good.

The conversation wandered through Clan Rito's production and where the wine normally went.

You eventually turned toward the logistics system because Teba mentioned Sam while explaining another shipment problem.

The changes from his earlier report had now been running long enough to judge.

Several were working exactly as intended.

A reporting chain had remained shorter than before.

A supply responsibility had stopped falling between two officers.

Teba credited Sam again without needing to be prompted.

Joffrey joined the conversation somewhere in the middle.

"Good, because that sounds much better already."

He listened while Teba explained the current structure.

"Once this is properly established, I should find somebody whose actual responsibility is keeping it established."

"Teba has enough jobs already."

Teba nodded immediately after hearing that.

That reaction made clear he had no secret ambition to become permanent master of every wagon in Dorne.

"No names for the position yet?"

You asked Joffrey.

"Not yet, because there's no reason to hurry."

Joffrey shook his head.

"I'd rather have a working position before deciding which person looks best sitting in it."

That sounded sensible enough to leave alone.

Then Joffrey noticed the wine in your hand.

Tulin offered him some with considerably less warning than friendship should've allowed.

You expected immediate vindication from Joff.

He took one sip and became thoughtful instead.

"That's genuinely unpleasant to drink."

He took another sip anyway.

You stared at him after the second taste.

"You're deliberately drinking it again."

"It's still unpleasant the second time."

Joffrey rolled the taste around before swallowing.

"But it's unpleasant in a very particular direction."

"Some people genuinely like wines this bitter."

Teba and Tulin became much more interested after that.

Joffrey continued examining the cup.

"It's never going to beat Arbor wine by pretending to be Arbor wine."

"That doesn't mean nobody south of the Neck would buy it."

He looked toward Tulin while speaking.

"Send a small amount somewhere people can actually choose among several wines."

"If nobody buys a second cup, you've learned cheaply."

"If the strange people who enjoy this find it, you've learned something useful."

You made a mental note to find some strange Southerners with money.

Long Lake had enough wine that discovering Southerners willing to pay for bitterness could become quite useful.

Something else bothered you more than the economics.

You had eaten with Joffrey often enough to know he rarely cared this much about whatever drink accompanied dinner.

"You never seem to care much about what you're drinking at dinners."

You looked toward the cup in his hand.

"How do you know enough about wine to predict who'll actually like this?"

Joffrey's expression changed slightly after the question.

Not badly, but enough that the answer clearly came from somewhere more personal than trade.

"Father taught me most of what I know."

He looked down at the wine again.

"Trying different drinks together was one of the things we did."

"He liked alcohol, and I liked having something we both enjoyed doing."

That sounded almost embarrassingly simple.

Joffrey continued before anyone made it sentimental.

"He'd find something he hadn't tried, or something he thought I should recognize, and we'd taste it."

"Wine, ale, spirits, and some truly horrible things people insisted counted as local specialties."

Robb looked delighted by the conclusion.

"You developed an advanced palate because Robert Baratheon liked drinking."

"When you phrase it that way, I admit the education sounds less distinguished."

Joffrey smiled before taking another small drink.

"At dinner I usually care more about the people than the cup."

"That doesn't mean I forgot what Father taught me."

Something about the answer made several older pieces of Joff fit together…

Joffrey could play the King.

He could play diplomat, warrior, gracious host, confident commander, or whatever else a room needed.

Robert's son was underneath those performances.

You had never doubted that, yet somehow still failed to understand it.

Then you noticed the stranger part.

Everyone else knew what Robert Baratheon's son looked like.

They could simply look at Joffrey.

Joffrey couldn't do that himself.

Somewhere inside his head was another Robert Baratheon's son.

The person he thought Robert's son ought to become.

The person he still measured himself against.

That made the duel with Aegon look different.

So did Joffrey wanting to become a better King than Robert while still caring intensely about what Robert would've thought.

Joffrey could know his father had been wrong.

He could criticize him openly when necessary.

He could still ask himself what Robert's son should do.

Those things didn't contradict each other inside him.

Fortunately, nobody paused the outing for your revelation.

People talked around you for several more hours.

Tulin defended Long Lake wine with steadily decreasing sincerity.

Robb found several reasons to mention that you had nearly spat your first taste into the sea.

Joff remained exactly as much Joff as before.

Nothing visibly changed because you had understood him slightly better.

Eventually everyone rode back toward Yronwood.

The sea stayed behind you while several new problems returned to the front of your mind.

One of them was Janus.

Sam's explanation of Southern categories had changed how you thought about the old problem.

You found Jon several days later.

Robb was already with him and remained there when you started explaining.

"Southerners don't just think warging is stranger than animal training."

You watched Jon process the distinction.

"They can treat them as fundamentally different kinds of things."

"Different enough that resemblance doesn't necessarily matter."

Jon leaned against the side of the table.

"That makes the training explanation more useful."

"Exactly, and I think we can make more of the map real."

You pulled the old map closer toward you.

Robb looked immediately interested.

You had collected pebbles, sticks, and several scraps of ribbon.

They looked less like military intelligence and more like a child had lost interest halfway through building a village.

"Janus doesn't need to point at a map we already made."

You moved one pebble into place.

"He can build one out of these."

"Sticks for walls, ribbons for roads, different stones for men or gates."

Jon watched your demonstration in silence.

His expression became less enthusiastic with every added object.

"The bond can make him do all of that."

"That still isn't the actual problem."

You stopped moving the pebbles after hearing that.

Jon pointed toward the increasingly elaborate arrangement.

"The problem is explaining why anybody should believe we trained a raven to do all that."

"We're making the performance harder again."

That was irritatingly true once he said it.

Robb studied the little map for several moments.

"I could probably sell this to people."

He sounded thoughtful rather than boastful.

Then he looked from you to Jon.

"You two shouldn’t build a plan that requires you to sell something this detailed."

Neither of you argued with Robb's conclusion.

Robb had been acting since childhood.

You and Jon were the reason other people got supporting roles.

So the problem changed into something simpler.

Not how impressive Janus could look.

How simple could the useful behavior become?

You started removing pieces from the map.

"Give him one thing he needs to notice."

Jon took one of the sticks away.

"Something somebody could believe a raven learned to recognize."

"Guard change would work for that."

You both looked toward Robb after saying it.

He nodded slowly while considering the idea.

"Send Janus to their camp at night."

You pushed the remaining pebble toward the edge of the table.

"He waits until the guards change, then returns."

"One instruction, one event, one response."

Jon considered it for several moments.

"That I could believe somebody trained."

More importantly, it was militarily useful.

A guard change created one of the cleaner moments to catch men between routines.

You almost settled for that answer.

Then Sam's plants returned to mind.

"One flight isn't enough to prove anything."

You pulled the map back toward yourself.

"We should time how long Janus normally takes getting there and back."

"Then repeat the route several times."

Robb nodded after hearing the suggestion.

Jon understood before you finished.

"Then compare his return against the bells."

"If he keeps coming back the same amount of time after one bell, we know which bell is close to the change."

That was both simpler and more immediately useful than the original plan.

Janus found the pattern.

After that, the bell became the signal.

You started testing the idea that same night.

Then you tested it again the next night.

Janus flew while you timed him.

He returned while you compared what you heard against the enemy bells.

The first attempt gave you almost nothing useful because Janus returned at the wrong time.

The second gave you something more useful.

By the fourth, you had enough numbers to stop treating every return as an isolated event.

You still needed more observations before trusting it.

A week of repeated flights was dramatically easier to explain than one raven producing a perfect enemy map from colored pebbles.

The rest of the month kept moving while Janus flew.

Willas improved slowly enough that anyone watching every hour would've been disappointed.

Anyone comparing him to the man who arrived at Yronwood could see the difference.

He sat through longer meetings without collapsing afterward.

He walked farther without needing immediate rest, and his gait looked a little easier.

He appeared at training one afternoon and remained long enough to watch Garlan continue the heroic struggle of teaching Sam where his feet belonged.

Willas even contributed several useful comments.

Sam listened carefully whenever he spoke.

Garlan ignored one piece of strategic advice because it had nothing to do with the sword currently aimed at Sam's shoulder.

Willas eventually needed to sit down again.

That still would've been impossible according to Sam's old recovery estimates.

The Reach noticed the improvement around him.

Their lords became warmer first in ways subtle enough that you almost missed them.

The soldiers were much less careful about it.

Several started greeting Springlords openly when they passed.

One Reach officer thanked you after a man under him recovered from a tainted wound faster than expected.

The Reachmen had not become your friends overnight, but gratitude no longer felt quite so political.

Joffrey had already done the explaining for everyone.

Your reputation had changed enough by the final week that training with Boneway and western lords felt ordinary.

That was how you ended up across from Edmure again.

Nobody called it a rematch.

Nobody needed to.

You had all been training for hours beneath a Dornish sun which appeared personally offended by armor.

Water breaks had become less optional with every bout.

You had fought more than Edmure that day.

You were also wearing heavier armor than most of the people around you because years of bad decisions had taught your body to consider this normal.

Edmure looked tired after the long afternoon.

You were tired yourself.

Those statements stopped meaning the same thing once the fight began.

His first exchanges were still better.

He was still cleaner in his movements.

He was still more precise in his choices.

He found openings before you did and made you spend effort closing them.

Fresh, this had ended with Edmure winning.

For the first part of the second fight, it looked likely to happen again.

Then fatigue started collecting its payment.

Nobody watching could mistake the reason.

No sudden collapse announced the change.

His recovery after one strike took slightly longer.

His feet became less perfect than before.

An opening he would've exploited immediately during the first bout required another moment now.

You were slowing too under the heat.

You were slowing less than Edmure.

Nothing got easier.

You had simply trained longer at functioning while it stayed difficult.

Edmure's greater skill mattered less with every additional exchange because fatigue made that precision harder to maintain.

Eventually you caught him cleanly enough to end it.

The strike would've been decisive with real steel.

Edmure stepped back and lowered his weapon.

For several seconds neither of you spoke.

You were both busy breathing hard.

“I liked this fight a lot more an hour ago.”

Edmure wiped sweat away from his face.

"You won when we were both fresh."

You lowered your own sword.

"And you decided to make fatigue a weapon."

"I mostly decided not to become tired as quickly."

One of the watching lords laughed nearby.

Another looked at your armor before looking back toward you.

"That explains why you're an Infantry Commander."

The observation landed more cleanly than any compliment about swordsmanship.

You weren't built around one spectacular exchange.

Your advantage became larger after an hour.

Then after another hour of fighting.

A line battle did not care who looked most impressive during the first thirty seconds.

It cared who could still lift his weapon after hours of armor, fear, heat, thirst, noise, and other men trying to kill him.

You had spent years becoming extremely good at exactly that.

Edmure remained the better swordsman between you.

Under the right conditions, that stopped being the only thing deciding the fight.

The camp started changing soon afterward.

The shift was subtle for about a day.

Then it became impossible to miss.

Supplies were moving with specific destinations instead of ordinary maintenance.

Officers checked units more aggressively than before.

Armor repairs which would've waited several days suddenly became today's problem.

Janus's flights stopped feeling like an experiment and started feeling like intelligence preparation.

The three armies were getting ready to attack.

Joff found you before the large war council.

Joffrey could pass for recovered now.

He could not fool you, and neither of you could fool Berenice.

"The strategy is already decided before this meeting."

Joffrey started there before you could ask why he had called you aside.

You frowned after hearing that explanation.

"Then why are we having a war council?"

"Because several hundred lords and officers need to believe their commanders are confident."

Joffrey adjusted one cuff while speaking.

"They need to see Willas functioning, Barristan agreeing, Robb and Edmure involved, the western army incorporated, and every unpleasant thing Aegon demonstrated already accounted for."

"Then they go tell their own people that the command knows what it's doing."

"So we're pretending to decide what we've already decided."

"Yes, and you're going to be excellent at your part."

Joffrey calling your role excellent was probably a warning.

You waited for the dangerous part.

Joffrey smiled before explaining the whole assignment.

"I'm going to ask whether Janus can identify their night guard change."

"You will say that he can do it."

"You will say repeated observation should give us the most common change within roughly a week."

He raised one finger before finishing.

"Then you will stop talking entirely."

That improved the plan enormously in your opinion.

You had done this before, just with cheaper costumes.

Robb and his friends had put on plays when you were children.

Some of them had actual roles worth remembering.

Robb could remember lines, change his expression, carry a scene, and continue when somebody forgot what happened next.

Your contributions had generally been considerably simpler.

Stand where they put you and wait.

Say the one line somebody taught you.

Avoid deciding midway through that the play needed additional creativity.

This was exactly the same arrangement.

It was the same childhood play, except the actors carried real swords and the audience commanded armies.

Your job remained reassuringly unchanged.

Wait for Joffrey to give the signal.

Say the line you already know.

Then stop talking before anything goes wrong.

One line and then silence was a form of public speaking you could get behind.

The room itself made several things visible before anyone spoke.

Joffrey occupied the obvious center of everything.

Robb and Edmure sat close enough that nobody could mistake Edmure for the man who had merely filled in while the important people recovered.

Edmure no longer looked like anyone's substitute.

The Boneway army had three voices which mattered for different reasons.

The western arrangement looked different from theirs.

Willas still showed traces of exhaustion if you knew to watch for them.

Even the old limp seemed less consistent than it had been when he arrived.

Sam had several papers arranged around him.

Garlan had the effortless presence of someone men expected to follow.

Willas connected the other two.

Sam carried much of the detailed thought.

Garlan carried the part people naturally wanted to follow.

Prince's Pass looked less neat by comparison.

Barristan was obvious to everyone.

So were you, at least where the Infantry mattered.

Then the rest spread outward through several people.

Teba had improved logistics throughout the month.

Berenice owned much of the medical structure.

Officers and specialists carried other pieces of the army.

Prince's Pass worked, it just lacked one equally obvious third figure.

You filed the problem away as Joffrey opened the council.

Once you knew it was a play, the mechanics became almost embarrassingly visible.

One lord raised a concern which Willas clearly knew was coming.

Willas answered it without much hesitation.

Another question let Sam explain why the supply side could support part of the proposed movement.

Garlan discussed what the men at the front could realistically execute.

Robb argued for an aggressive piece in a way which made the eventual compromise feel earned.

Edmure handled one Boneway concern with the confidence of someone who had already spent days running the army when nobody else could.

Barristan gave the sort of judgment nobody sensible challenged casually.

Some disagreement was still real at the edges.

The important boundaries obviously were not.

Information arrived in the order that made the plan look increasingly inevitable.

Joffrey knew exactly when he should speak.

More importantly, he knew when somebody else should speak.

You would've missed most of that if he hadn't told you what to watch.

Aegon's champions eventually became unavoidable.

Nobody used the language they had used before the first battle.

Calling them elite knights wasn't enough anymore.

Oberyn had been the clearest proof of that.

Jaime had been the more skilled fighter.

Oberyn's monstrous strength had made that difference insufficient.

The Kingsguard around Aegon had demonstrated the same problem.

Then there was Aegon himself and the missing seconds nobody could explain.

The plan didn't require an explanation for that.

It required respecting what everyone had already seen happen.

No clean heroic fights if they could avoid them.

Archers would pressure enhanced fighters from distance.

Multiple opponents would prevent them from focusing comfortably.

Supporting formations and reserves would be positioned to stop one enhanced fighter from turning a local break into a larger collapse.

If one of Aegon's champions wanted a glorious duel, the loyalists intended to answer with several men and arrows.

Then somebody finally asked about the duel everyone knew Joffrey wanted.

Aegon and Joffrey had already fought once.

Nobody needed to ask whether the King wanted another chance.

You knew perfectly well that he did.

Joffrey knew he wanted it too.

That wasn't the same thing as allowing the desire to write the plan.

"We aren't recreating the Trident a second time."

Joffrey's voice carried across the table.

"Aegon has already demonstrated at least one ability we don't understand."

“I nearly died because I chose the dramatic option over the sensible one.”

Nobody volunteered to defend the strategic value of nearly decapitating the King.

Joffrey's mouth tightened slightly before continuing.

"My father would've enjoyed the first attempt considerably more if I had won."

"He would've had considerably less patience with me making the same mistake twice."

You heard the line differently now than before.

At the medical cot, it had sounded like Joffrey talking about Robert because Joffrey often talked about Robert.

After the sea, you could see the structure underneath.

Robert's imagined judgment wasn't decoration for Joffrey.

It genuinely helped him decide what Robert Baratheon's son should do next.

That son had already tried the great duel.

Now he was supposed to learn from it.

The staged discussion continued around the table.

You waited because that was your part.

Eventually Joffrey looked directly toward you.

The cue was obvious enough that even you couldn't miss it.

"Lord Stark, what confidence do you have in identifying the Blackfyre night guard change?"

Every face near that section of the table turned toward you.

You had prepared for this exact moment.

Knowing the answer beforehand improved your political speaking enormously.

"Janus can perform the task reliably enough."

You kept your voice steady as instructed.

"With repeated flights, we should have a useful estimate of their most common night guard change within roughly a week."

"If we act before they alter the routine, that should give us an excellent opening."

Then you stopped speaking completely.

It was almost disappointingly easy once finished.

Nobody demanded another speech from you.

Joffrey nodded and moved the discussion onward.

Nobody asked you to speak again, freeing you to do something much safer: watch.

Robb looked completely comfortable while speaking.

Edmure looked like a lord who had never once wondered whether he belonged at a command table.

Willas looked intelligent, controlled, and considerably healthier than he actually was.

Garlan looked exactly like the gallant commander everyone expected him to be.

Sam spoke with enough confidence that somebody who had only met him today might assume he had always been comfortable asserting himself among older war leaders.

Joffrey held the whole thing together.

And you knew they were acting in part.

Not lying, because that distinction suddenly mattered enormously:

Robb was confident.

Edmure was competent.

Willas was one of the best strategic minds in the room.

Sam understood the logistics and strategy.

Garlan could lead men.

Joffrey really was the King.

They were also presenting those truths deliberately.

They selected which part of themselves the room needed.

They made confidence visible when confidence was useful.

They hid uncertainty which would serve no useful purpose.

For a long time, people who could do that had looked almost like a different sort of person to you.

Joffrey could enter a room and look certain.

Robb could perform competence even while thinking through something.

You couldn't naturally do either one.

That had quietly made the ability feel larger than a skill.

Now you had just participated in the same performance yourself.

Joffrey had given you one line beforehand.

You had delivered that one line successfully.

For those few seconds, anyone watching could easily believe Lord Wulfric Stark was perfectly comfortable announcing his intelligence contribution before the combined nobility of three armies.

You knew exactly how much of that comfort came from Joffrey telling you beforehand when to speak and when to stop.

They were better at showing confidence.

That was not the same thing as possessing more of it.

They weren't automatically more intelligent because they knew how to look intelligent while speaking.

Some of them genuinely were more intelligent than you.

Sam almost certainly belonged in that category.

Some were genuinely much more charismatic than you.

The difference was not what they were underneath.

Joffrey and Robb were better at turning real confidence into something other people could see.

You were bad at those particular skills.

Other people in this room were very good at them.

That did not make them different creatures underneath the roles.

It meant they could control what part of themselves reached an audience.

You still couldn't simply see through all of them.

That would've been a much more useful breakthrough.

You still couldn't see behind every performance.

At least you knew the performance was there.

Joff was clearest because you had seen more of the man behind his performance.

The King controlling this room was partly a role.

Robert Baratheon's son wasn't merely another role.

That was part of the man deciding how the King should behave.

Somewhere inside Joffrey was still an idea of what Robert's son ought to become.

Apparently Joffrey had decided Robert Baratheon's son should become a very good King.

That seemed like a difficult standard to live beneath.

The council eventually reached its planned conclusion.

The performance worked because the plan underneath it was real.

The concerns looked anticipated because most of them had been.

The lords saw Willas functioning despite his recovery.

Barristan gave the plan weight.

Robb and Edmure looked like trustworthy commanders.

Sam supplied details, Garlan supplied execution, and Joffrey treated Aegon's advantages as problems rather than reasons to panic.

Then they left to carry that confidence outward.

The performance had produced something completely real.

A successful performance did not magically finish the work waiting outside the tent.

Janus still needed more flights.

Willas still tired much too quickly.

Nobody knew what magic had strengthened his poison.

The Green group had acquired better questions rather than final answers.

Prince's Pass logistics remained improved rather than finished.

Jon remained merely a possible future Kingsguard.

Your Infantry still functioned better institutionally than your personal relationship with several of its men did.

None of those problems needed solving before the army moved, but the rematch wouldn’t wait for them.

The camp changed around you as preparations became final.

Armor was repaired throughout the camp.

Units were checked by their officers again.

Supplies moved toward the places where commanders expected to need them.

Officers repeated instructions until men could repeat them back correctly.

The three loyalist armies had spent most of the month recovering from a battle you missed.

Now they were preparing to create the next one deliberately.

Your Infantry was going to be part of it.

That thought carried more weight than you expected.

Much of the war had placed you somewhere important but slightly beside the moment everyone remembered afterward.

You had spent the war doing necessary things.

That did not make arriving after the memorable part any less irritating.

Arriving after somebody else had already fought the battle everyone wanted to discuss still bothered you.

You did not resent any of those jobs.

That did not mean you enjoyed spending half a war hearing about the most important fighting once it was already finished.

This time would be different.

There were excellent reasons to worry about that.

Jaime Lannister was dead.

Oberyn Martell had killed him with strength no ordinary man possessed.

Aegon's Kingsguard possessed enough strength to throw Robb around.

Joffrey had nearly been decapitated by Aegon.

Aegon could apparently remove several seconds from a man's awareness, and nobody had any idea how.

You were preparing to fight enemies you were still learning about through the people they killed.

That was not a comforting position to occupy.

The fear was real.

So was something much closer to anticipation.

At the beginning of the month, you had reached Yronwood smiling and discovered that the important battle had already happened while you were half a day's ride away.

The next important battle was approaching now.

And this time, you were determined to be there for the part everyone remembered!

-----

Skills:

Pursuits:

Martial:

(12) Physical Form - 210/400 (+35)

(11) Westerosi Swordsmanship - 170/300 (+35)

(12) Archery - 180/400 (+20) (Gifted)

(13) Heavy Armour - 200/500 (+50) (Prodigious)

Avocations:

(12) Equestrianism - 55/400 (+10) (Talented)

(10) Hunting - 20/200 (+0)

(10) Seacraft - 40/100 (+5) (Knack)

(7) Fishing - 60/100 (+0)

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

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

Scholarly:

Applied:

(12) Accounting - 285/400 (+25) (Prodigious)

(7) Northern Law - 75/100 (+5) (Knack)

(7) General Westerosi Law - 65/100 (+5) (Knack)

(7) Castrametation - 170/100 (+20) (Knack)

(4) Poliorcetics - 85/100 (+0)

Contextual:

(9) Mathematics - 95/100 (+10) (Knack)

(10) Northern History - 195/200 (+5) (Knack)

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

(8) Westerosi History - 50/100 (+5)

(7) Westerosi Cultures - 40/100 (+10)

(7) Common Literacy - 25/100 (+0)

(6) Valyrian Literacy - 30/100 (+0)

Social:

Public:

(14) Management - 150/500 (+50) (Prodigious)

(9) Stewardship - 5/100 (+15) (Knack)

(12) Strategy - 235/400 (+35) (Prodigious +)

(9) Public Speaking - 70/100 (+20) (Skilled)

Personal:

(12) Interpersonal Communication - 175/400 (+30) (Skilled)

(5) Acting (Lying/Politics) - 80/100 (+10) (Incapacity)

(11) Common Speaking - 200/300 (+40) (Knack)

(11) Old Tongue Speaking - 200/300 (+10) (Knack)

(8) Valyrian Speaking - 20/100 (+5) (Knack)

Magic:

(1) Theory of Magic - 20/100 (+10)

- (1) Potentium: Heartsense + Warging - 10/100 (+0)

(19) Verdancy:

- (11) The Green Aura - 30/300 (+30) (Talented)

- - (3) The Green Touch - 20/100 (+15)

- (6) The Green Knowledge - 10/100 (+5) (Knack)

(37) Potentium:

- (1) Potentium Studies - 80/100 (+5)

- (4) Combat Intuition - 15/100 (+0)

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

- - (11) Heartsense - 10/200 (+10)

- (6) Warging - 20/100 (+30) (Talented)

- - (3) Warging Theory - 65/100 (+15) (Knack)

- (2) Somatic Insight - 85/100 (+5) (Knack)

- - (5) Force Healing - 80/100 (+10) (Gifted)

- - (6) Healing Trance - 15/100 (+10) (Knack)

(7) Enchanting:

- (6) Westerosi Runes Theory - 50/100 (+10)

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

(18) Adamancy:

- (8) Armored Recuperation - 20/100 (+20)

- (5) Burden Opponent - 20/100 (+20)

- (3) Ending Blow - 50/100 (+0)

- (3) Ocular Renewal - 5/100 (+5)

- (2) Cold Resistance - 10/100 (+0)

(5) Numinance:

- (1) Revive - 100/100 (+0)

- (4) Sensor Shroud - 10/100 (+5) (Knack)

-----

Resources:

Earning: 8

Spending: 0

Banked: 130

-----

Rolls for Next Turn:

T3 = Objects/Effect on Another Place

L1 = Inconvenient

(Shit…)

-----

Voting:

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

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

A2 - Focus on your reputation with the Lords and Fellow 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 Martially Minded like Jon.

A5 - Focus on the Strategic & Logistical situation of the Army. (War Games, Runes, etc.)

Personal Rolls Sources:

S1 - Wikipedia (On Cooldown 1/1)

S2 - Steam Games

S3 - Wookiepedia

S4 - World Rolls List (On Cooldown 2/2)

-----

Information/Maps:

1 - Varys The Spider’s War Map

Imgur - File Garden - Catbox

Key:

Red - Baratheon Loyalist Coalition (POV)

Blue - Stannis’s Rebels + R'hllor Support + Privateers + Euron

Purple - Slaves of the Grandfather (“Golden Company” + ”Dorne”)

Yellow - Independent Veil (Arryn Loyalists + Mountain Clan Rebels)

Pink - Arianne Martell’s Counter-Rebellion

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

Imgur - File Garden - Catbox

3 - Full Planetos Map

Note: Not accurate to Westeros or Western Essos/the Free Cities.

4 - Main Actions Have Been Reorganized

This isn’t really removing anything.

It’s mostly combining overlapping options and making each one more clearly about a particular kind of chapter rather than having several choices quietly doing the same job.

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

(Work + Connect with the Common Men)

This is basically the old A1 and A5 rolled together.

Now that the Infantry can largely run itself, this lets us spend time directly working with the men so they still feel meaningfully connected to us without requiring Infantry to take up 40% of our choices.

A2 - Focus on your reputation with the Lords and Fellow Commanders.

(Improve Reputation)

Mostly the same as before, but it also absorbs some of the socialization side of the old A4.

This is now the big reputation option, which lets A4 focus much more cleanly on its ostensible purpose.

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

(Springlord Healing + Magic Study)

This is now also the broader Study Magic option, with healing as the main way to do that.

So if you want Wulfric spending the month learning more about healing, the Green, some magical theory, etc., this is the choice.

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

(Fight Better + Integrate Abilities Into Fighting)

Still mostly the same option, but without the implicit focus on improving our reputation with the lords.

Instead, it now leans harder into actually becoming better in a fight, including incorporating magic into combat.

That can mean things like fighting alongside Jinx/Ghost, using Janus overhead, and/or learning to properly integrate things like Hart Weard (our enchanted shield) into the way we fight rather than using them as one-off tricks to fill a gap.

Some Knights/Lords can be present for this, but so can some of the troops.

The big change is that any reputation gained from this one is now incidental rather than half the purpose of picking it.

A5 - Focus on the Strategic & Logistical situation of the Army.

(Some Magic + Some Reputation + Multi-Chapter Goal Development)

This one grew out of something that became increasingly important during the Prince’s Pass campaign: cross-regional expertise sharing kept producing better results the longer people worked together.

We’ll still do some of this regardless of the vote, but this is the option to pick if you want a chapter to go hard on things like rune development, using Janus or Jinx/Ghost as scouts, or the ongoing cultural & military knowledge-sharing happening inside the army.

In practice, this is the option with a bit of everything: some magic, some reputation, and a lot of progress on multi-chapter goals.

This one can make more sense to pick while performing a siege, as that’s when these things become the focus of the army rather than an ongoing process.

5 - Radicorn Clarifications (Lore 16: Radicorn Lore & Clarifications)

A few things about Radicorns got clarified between chapters:

They’re animals.

Part of why I was so willing to interpret the roll this strongly is that this is a Star Wars crossover now, and Star Wars has some deeply crazy animals in the best possible ways

Purrgil are giant whales whose native environment is somehow the void of space and which can casually travel faster than light.

Radicorns are closer to Loth-Wolves, which are basically giant tundra wolves until they decide they’d like to walk across the universe and possibly through time.

“Animal, except the Force is doing some bullshit” is a well-established ecological niche here.

Their morality is extremely Blue and Orange.

They’ve definitely got a moral system, but they aren’t super murder detectors operating on human priorities.

Someone who murdered a person, freely admits it, and faithfully accepts their sentence is genuinely their favorite kind of human.

They don’t even need to be sorry.

Honest murderer serving his punishment?

Wonderful person, apparently.

They don’t seem to care much about time.

Ramsay got caught basically in the middle of his serial killing.

Someone else might get their first visit twenty years later.

There’s no known reason why.

Some hunts last months or years.

Ramsay got the relatively straightforward version where one found him and chased him toward a previous victim’s family.

Other people get the horror movie.

It appears for a few seconds, disappears, comes back weeks later, keeps escalating, and eventually drives them somewhere their crime becomes very difficult to keep hidden.

Circumstances can change their judgment.

Someone might not interest them while a murder is widely known, then become much more interesting decades later once the witnesses are dead, and they’ve effectively gotten away with it.

They understand mental state instinctively.

A genuine insanity defense actually works on them.

This was part of the Mad King’s problem.

They would only engage with him during his more lucid periods, so his case was a very slow one rather than a Radicorn immediately chasing him through King’s Landing.

The Faceless Men are a loophole, completely by accident.

Their training takes years and involves breaking down their sense of identity so thoroughly that what they do genuinely doesn’t register to them as bad.

Since Radicorns work backward through culpability based partly on how the people involved understand their own actions, the chain basically breaks.

That protection extends to the client

Hiring the Sorrowful Men can still get a Radicorn interested in you, while hiring a Faceless Man doesn’t.

Fortunately, the Faceless Men already solved the exploit problem themselves by being absurdly expensive, taking months or years to complete jobs, and sometimes charging people in things considerably more painful than money.

There aren’t very many Radicorns.

They can cover ludicrous distances, but in raw population they're roughly comparable to their mountain-goat-esque Skagosi cousins.

Rarity is why the “one spirit with multiple bodies” theory survives.

Most encounters never produce useful records, since they tend to occur in far-flung places and lead to the target being led to their victim's kin.

So nobody really writes down specifics most of the time, even though the myth does spread from such cases.

But even the well-documented cases only give in-setting scholars a few points in history where maybe 5-6 were provably active on the same day across the known world.

That’s enough to prove something weird is happening, but not enough to tell whether there were six animals, one creature moving impossibly quickly, or one entity manifesting six bodies.

They’re a known risk, not a civilization-changing murder police force.

Murder someone, and maybe nothing happens.

Maybe twenty years from now a unicorn-shaped problem appears outside your bedroom window.

The longer you keep getting away with things, the more chances you’re giving the universe to get weird about it.

But they aren’t the first thing someone thinks about before doing the deed.

They can appear elsewhere in the Galaxy.

Planetos is overwhelmingly where they live and where people understand them, but given their abilities, there’s nothing physically keeping them there.

One will occasionally show up on another planet, scare the absolute hell out of everyone, and leave without the locals ever figuring out what just happened.

Culpability is one of the messiest parts.

Sometimes the Radicorn goes after the Lord who gave the order because the knight carrying it out had decent reasons.

Such as: just doing a job someone else would’ve done anyway if they refused (and possibly less quickly than they would).

Sometimes a lord gives a vague order, and a quietly sadistic knight turns it into murder, so the knight becomes the target instead.

Scholars know both things happen and sometimes even understand why.

Other times somebody involved successfully hid what was going on in their own head, so from the outside the choice looks completely arbitrary.

Radicorns are cryptids in the American sense.

People who study them know there’s a system.

They know enough to identify patterns, make predictions, and occasionally explain why something happened.

They also know the system wasn’t built for human brains.

That incomprehensibility is a huge part of what makes them dangerous.

The magic is bad enough, what's worse is realizing the monster outside your window definitely has a reason for being there, but having absolutely no idea what part it’s offended by.

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Write-In/Questions:

1 - Invest in Northern Wine Production (25 Resources)? - Yes / No

Alej on QQ gave me the idea to let you lot invest in more Resources Per Turn.

I don’t want to go too crazy with this, but it seems reasonable to offer to double our gains when we roll something like this.

So, I put the question to you lot: Should we invest 25 Resources in Northern Wine Production now and gain +1 Resources Per Turn (starting in Ch80)?

Note: This isn’t just mechanical, doing this also means investing in the economy of Long Lake and will make our people like us a bit more…

For Copy-Paste:

Invest - Yes

Invest - No