Dragon King Part 12 (Patreon)

"Myst Targaryen, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms," Selena announced as Myst walked into the small council.

Oberyn Martell couldn't help the amused grin as his nephew walked over to the chair that would have reminded everyone that he was a child and casually spun it around then jumped up on the seat and leaned against the backrest so he could look down at the assembled council.

Myst frowned when he glanced around the room and noticed that everyone other than Oberyn looked grim or in the maester's case, furious. "What happened?"

Varys glanced at Elia then focused on Myst. "We're still trying to make sense of it, your grace. I received several messages via raven. Twenty seven maesters showed up outside of the Starry Sept to protest the existence of the Seven, rather than enter into some sort of dialogue, most of the septons and septas charged out of the sept with knives and started stabbing people, starting with the maesters."

Myst stared at Varys for a couple of seconds then looked at the maester that had come with Stannis, wondering if everyone had lost their damn minds. "What the hell?!"

"I wish I knew," Cressen admitted.

Myst rubbed his nose in frustration then focused on Cressen. "Let's ignore the insane reaction from the Faith for a moment, can you shed some light on why the Citadel decided to send twenty seven Maesters to the sept to protest?"

Cressen shook his head. "No, the Citadel is usually careful to avoid upsetting people by discussing matters of faith in public."

"They mentioned the corruption in the Sept of Baelor," Varys offered, as lost as everyone else on why the confrontation happened.

Myst scowled as he thought about the mess the attack was going to cause, if only because the Faith had an insane amount of popular support. "Please tell me someone stopped the priests before they started stabbing innocent people."

"Wish I could," Varys replied with a grimace. "Unfortunately, the septons took to the streets and started stabbing people for various alleged crimes against the Seven before the city guards could intervene. By the time the city guards managed to get everything under control, the septons had killed at least fifty nine people and injured a few hundred."

"Great," Myst muttered. "Did they manage to get everything under control?"

Varys nodded. "Lord Hightower had the surviving septons and septas placed in protective custody to keep the townsfolk from killing them, including the septons in the sept that were in the process of destroying records."

"Which records?" Myst asked, wondering what they were trying to hide.

"Apparently, they'd borrowed heavily from the Iron Bank and were trying to hide the fact, most likely in an attempt to claim innocence," Varys offered, a bit surprised that the Faith had needed to borrow money as they should have had plenty.

Stannis scowled. "Most likely in an attempt to force the crown to get involved."

Myst glanced between Stannis and Cressen. "Please tell me that we're not responsible for their mismanagement."

"We're not," Oberyn assured him. "I wouldn't put it past the Bank to hold it against us in future dealings but we have enough gold in our vaults that it shouldn't matter."

"Good." Myst turned to look at Cressen. "Do you know of any poisons that would cause the sept to lose their minds?"

"Everything I can think of would have killed at least half of them, the maesters should be able to check for poisons and diseases," Cressen assured him.

"If they can't find any material cause for their insanity, fine them one hundred gold dragons per death and send the surviving septons to the Wall or the Silent Sisters if they'll take them," Myst ordered.

Oberyn glanced at Elia then looked at his nephew. "If the vaults in the Starry Sept are empty, it's unlikely they'll have enough gold to pay the fine."

Myst looked down at the map of Westeros spread out on the table. "Correct me if I'm wrong but last I checked, the Faith have a decent amount of property, property we're not collecting taxes on."

Stannis winced as he pictured the reaction from various lords when they found out the king was trying to 'steal' from the Faith. "A fair number of your lords will take offense if you start stealing property from the Faith of the Seven."

Myst turned his head to look at Stannis. "I believe the correct term is restitution. Besides, I doubt most of the lords are going to object to us confiscating a couple of expensive manors to pay off the Faith's debts. Any objections?"

Elia glanced at the rest of the people on the small council. "We'll have to be careful not to overreach but the Faith can't be allowed to escape justice."

"Agreed," Stannis offered.

"You are the king," Gerold stated.

Varys nodded. "We'll have to be careful but it would give us a chance to weaken the Faith without suffering a backlash from the smallfolk."

"The Citadel is going to want compensation," Cressen warned Myst.

Myst looked at the maester. "Considering they started the entire mess, I'm not particularly interested in listening to their whining. Feel free to come up with something more diplomatic when you send them a message."

"Considering the situation, that's more diplomatic than I'd be," Cressen admitted, agreeing with the king.

"Do we have other business to discuss?" Myst asked, wanting to get to the rest of the business so he could leave and spend some time in the library with Hermione.

Stannis glanced at Elia then looked at Myst, a bit disturbed by how articulate and reasonable the king was. "We need to go over the budget for the fleet and we should probably discuss the Ironborn."

"What about them?" Myst asked, curious how much Stannis had figured out. "Balon Greyjoy and his sons are dead save Theon and his daughter is the oldest, thus long live Yara Greyjoy, Lady of the Iron Islands."

Stannis shook his head. "The Ironborn aren't going to follow an eight year old girl."

Myst shrugged. "The surviving nobles are welcome to challenge her to a duel in eight years when she comes of age, until then she's under my protection and the protection of the guards I sent to the island to hold Pyke."

"You're assuming they won't try to kill your guards or revolt," Stannis argued.

"No, I'm assuming the guards can handle a couple of dozen ironborn trying to sneak into the castle at night to kill her. If they revolt, I'll have a chance to replace more of their so-called noble houses which should help destroy their culture," Myst explained, not seeing a point in mentioning the fact that he was planning on grinding their culture to dust.

Cressen glanced around at the rest of the small council. "Is anyone going to ask about the changes to the Red Keep or the city?"

"The smallfolk are saying it's a miracle because we have a good king," Oberyn offered, rather amused with some of the rumors flying around.

"Magic is a wondrous and terrible thing," Myst offered with a grin.

"Did you make a deal with a demon?" Cressen asked warily.

"Be careful of your tongue," Gerold snapped, glaring at Cressen.

Myst held up his hand as he picked through the maester's surface thoughts with his telepathy, curious if he was part of the cabal that wanted magic banished at any cost. 'No, he's just trying make sure I haven't done anything stupid and is out of his depth.' He glanced around the table, taking a quick look at Stannis and Gerold's thoughts, trying to make sure they weren't planning on killing him in his sleep.

Myst glanced at Gerold. "It's fine, this is a council, everyone is allowed and encouraged to give their opinions and question my ideas or orders. I'm going to make mistakes, either because I don't understand the laws or because of a lack of skill on my part. As for the maester's question, magic runs in my blood, I'm Targaryen."

Cressen glanced at Gerold then looked at Myst. "I'd have to check the records but most of the Targaryen's weren't magic users beyond their ability to control dragons."

"I'm not an expert but if I had to guess, I'd assume it had something to do with mixing bloodlines or random chance," Myst replied, fairly sure it had more to do with the ROB that had dropped him in Westeros than random chance.

Cressen noticed that Elia and Oberyn didn't seem disturbed about the magic so it probably wasn't something they needed to discuss at length before he could do some research. "I'll have to do some research."

"Let's take a look at the fleet budget then we can get lunch and look at which properties the Faith owns that might be useful to confiscate," Elia suggested, wanting to change the subject back to something they could deal with.

'Myst, are you still in the council meeting?' Dawn asked via telepathy as Stannis handed Elia a sheet of parchment with a summary of the fleet expenses written on it.

"Some of the numbers are a bit high but the raids might have driven prices up," Stannis offered, wanting a chance to talk to the men in charge of the fleet before he officially accused them of skimming off the top.

'Yeah, why?' Myst replied as he got a feeling that he was supposed to open his gacha menu.

Oberyn looked at the sheet of parchment, scanning over the numbers. "If they're skimming, it's not enough to worry about until they get back."

'Because I might have gotten carried away robbing temples and we could use your help sorting through the loot,' Dawn admitted.

'Why were you robbing temples?' Myst asked as he opened his gacha menu and looked at the prize wheels. 'Artifact of Change, Banner, Artifact of Doom, Magic Book, Tools, Cleaning Supplies and Pokeball?'

'Funny story,' Dawn replied a touch sheepishly. 'Zara really hates cults and some of the temples worship demons, she got a little carried away. Once we hit the temples, we started robbing the mansions of slave owners and using fake gems to buy slaves with magic potential.'

'Let me guess, Hermione conjured them?' Myst shivered as he suddenly felt like he was being watched. He quickly purchased all of the Wheels, doing his best not to look around or otherwise react to the eyes that felt like they were watching him. 'Please tell me everyone is back and in the keep.'

'We're sorting through the loot, why?' Dawn asked.

'Because I just got a bad feeling, like you're walking down the street at night and someone is watching you,' Myst replied, fairly sure he'd over reacted by purchasing everything while 'trapped' in a meeting with people he didn't trust.

'I'll see if Zara can toss up some wards or something, I wish Willow was here,' Dawn grumbled, wishing she hadn't let herself get carried away robbing temples.

'Next time, toss the wards up first,' Myst suggested as the cleaning wheel started to slow down. "I'll be right back, I need to take a leak."

"Take your time, we'll be fine," Elia assured him, fairly sure he just wanted to escape the boring discussion.

Myst jumped down from his chair and headed for the door, wanting to get out of sight before the prizes started dropping and a bit annoyed with himself for letting a paranoid feeling cause him to freak out and buy everything when he could have waited.

'I was expecting them to appear in the temple, not follow us home though we probably should have considered it,' Dawn admitted as she walked over to talk to Zara about setting up some wards.

"Do you need an escort?" Selena asked as she opened the door for him.

"Probably," Myst muttered under his breath as he walked into the hallway. He reached up and caught the bar of soap that dropped when his cleaning wheel stopped.

Ser Barristan raised his eyebrows as Selena walked out and closed the door. "Problems?"

Myst flipped his demon tracking ability on, trying to figure out if anyone was close and relaxed a touch when nothing showed up. "They're discussing the costs of running a fleet, I'm not familiar enough with the prices to be of much help."

"That's what you have advisers for," Ser Barristan replied with a touch of amusement.

Myst stuck the soap in his inventory and sighed when the rest of his wheels started slowing down at the same time. "I'll have to check how much I'm paying them, my Master of Coin seemed a bit shifty."

"I'll tell her you said that," Selena teased as she caught the dragon banner that appeared out of thin air.

"Thanks," Myst muttered sarcastically as he tried to catch the large tome that dropped at the same time as a red and white pokeball, fumbling the catch because of the size of his hands and the fact that the tome was lighter than he'd been expecting. He abandoned trying to catch the book and the pokeball when a metal box with a red button that read, 'Push to Reset World!' dropped from the Artifact of Change wheel.

Myst missed the catch when he felt six demons cross the edge of his tracking skill, letting him know that he wasn't being paranoid and ruining his concentration. He reflexively brought his knee up to keep the box from hitting the ground at the same time as one of the demons teleported next to Selena to rip her throat out, causing her to stumble backwards and hit the artifact with her butt, causing the box to turn just enough so that Myst's knee hit the button.

Myst had just enough time to stare at the damned box with the depressed button before the world lurched and turned inside out for a couple of seconds as he started to smell colors, see sounds and hear burning toast.

Ser Barristan blinked as the demon vanished and everything seemed to lurch into place. "What the hell?!" he blurted, his usual composure failing him.

"Some type of demon," Myst grumbled as he reached up and caught a plain looking gold ring that dropped from his Artifact of Doom wheel. He stuck the ring in his inventory then did the same for the book, banner and pokeball.

'Why does it feel like we just got off a twisted amusement park ride?' Dawn asked via telepathy, not particularly happy with the shadow demons that had tried to kill them, even if Zara had killed them before they'd finished entering the storeroom.

Myst glanced around for the missing box, more than a little annoyed when he couldn't see any sign of it. 'I'm guessing it had something to do with one of the prizes my gacha wheel dropped.'

Ser Barristan glanced both directions down the hallway. "I've heard of red priests being able to summon demons but I'm not sure why they'd want to kill you."

"No clue," Myst admitted as his Tool wheel stopped spinning and dropped a basketball sized glass globe into his hands. 'Probably because the girls were looting temples.'

"Is that Westeros?" Selena asked as she looked at the globe.

"It's missing Essos and the Lands of Always Winter," Ser Barristan said thoughtfully as he looked at the glass sphere.

"Weird…" Myst trailed off as he turned the globe and saw a familiar continent that shouldn't have been on a globe with Westeros. "Huh," he muttered as he checked the map with his upgrade ability, trying to figure out if it was showing him something real or something amusing. 'Allows remote viewing of the world you're standing on and comes with a wireless connection for printing maps. Seriously? Huh, I need a decent laptop.'

Selena frowned as she realized that Myst recognized the rest of the map. "What's wrong?"

Myst glanced over the rest of the globe to make sure there weren't any other surprises. "The sphere is enchanted to show a real time map of the world it's on, which means something moved Westeros to another world."

"Or they moved the rest of the world," Selena offered, curious what Myst knew about the new world as he seemed to recognize it.

"We're going to have to check the stars when we get a chance," Myst mused as he pushed mana into the globe to improve its durability, wanting to make sure someone couldn't accidently break his globe.

Ser Barristan glanced between Myst and Selena. "Is this a joke?"

"If it's a joke, I'm not laughing," Myst replied, fairly sure the Artifact wheel hadn't cost nearly enough mana to power a spell to move a continent. "If this is accurate, we just lost our major trading partners."

'Is there a reason it's dark out?' Rhaenys asked her brother via telepathy.

'Something went wrong, we're trying to fix it,' Myst replied telepathically. "It's currently dark out, something is obviously wrong."

Ser Barristan turned to look as a servant came running down the hallway, with a terrified look on his face. "Yes?"

"Ser, it's dark out!" the servant blurted.

"Nice to have confirmation," Myst mused as he walked over to the door to the small council and opened it. "Sorry to interrupt but we have a problem, we need the Maester to check the stars to see if everything is where it should be."

Cressen turned and looked at Myst. "You can't see the stars during the day well enough to determine anything."

Myst resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "I'm aware, however it's currently night which means you should be able to see the stars just fine."

"There shouldn't be an eclipse for years," Cressen muttered.

"And yet, here we are," Myst replied, a touch of annoyance creeping into his voice. "Something weird is going on and you're the best person to confirm that the stars are wrong unless I want to walk down to the port and I really don't want to wander around the city right now."

Elia stood up. "I think we're done, we can revisit the fleet budget when we're not in the middle of a crisis."

Cressen sighed as he got up, fairly sure someone was lying to the king but figuring it wouldn't hurt to humor him.

0o0o0

Dawn pulled her gaze away from the spot on the hallway floor where the shadow demons had died thanks to Zara's volley of arcane missiles and looked at the annoyed looking mage. "We're going to need wards."

"Best of luck," Zara muttered, knowing she didn't have the materials or schematics to create proper wards.

Dawn sighed as she thought about the various temples they'd looted. "Any idea which demon god sent the shadows?"

"The hairy demon, the goat demon, the snake demon, whatever demon was behind the Seven or the warlocks of Qarth, take your pick, we've been busy," Zara replied with a smile, trying to see the bright side of things.

Dawn frowned as something Zara said registered. "The Seven? I don't remember looting one of their temples."

"I dealt with the Starry Sept last night," Zara admitted.

"What do you mean dealt with?" Dawn asked warily.

Zara swapped her tracking ability to humanoids to check for spies. "Short version, I looted their vaults and made sure the worst of the septons would end up dead so we wouldn't have to deal with them in an official capacity."

Dawn glanced at the void elf. "I'm going to need the slightly longer version."

"I was in Oldtown to check on the Citadel and 'borrow' some books and I ran into an annoying Septon giving a speech about 'proper' behavior and the sin of lust. I laughed, he lost his shit and started ranting at me about how I should be flogged for the way I dress and for my disrespect. I was curious why his god actually cared how people dressed so I read his mind, he was a hypocrite and a sadist that wanted my jewelry."

"What did you do with him?" Dawn asked, wondering how much trouble she'd caused by making a priest vanish.

Zara scowled as she thought about the temple filled with arrogant priests. "I hauled him back to the temple to talk to the people in charge about his behavior, turns out they weren't interested in fixing the rot so I dug through their minds and realized most of them didn't even believe in their own god, they just liked the power that came from being priests."

"I'm not surprised," Dawn replied with a shrug.

"I probably would have turned them over to the guard for judgment but it would have been my world against theirs and the leaders were planning on sending a large group of the faithful to extort concessions and gold from Myst because of the magic that restored the city, so I decided to use them to deal with the magic hating assholes in the Citadel."

Dawn rubbed the bridge of her nose. "How much of a mess did you cause?"

"I was in disguise so I doubt things will come back to bite us but I left a bit of a mess. I gave the worst maesters I could find mental suggestions to go to the sept and protest, using the destruction of the Sept of Baelor as an excuse. I found the worst criminals I could in the city and edited their memories so they thought one of the septons had paid them to take out a rival septon and sent them towards the sept. It didn't take much to make sure everyone had a knife and push the septons, septas and twisted acolytes over the edge."

Dawn winced, once again reminded that her friend viewed cultists like Buffy viewed demons. "How many civilians were killed?"

"If you don't include the rapists, murderers and thugs I lured to the area, a butcher that didn't have a problem cutting up bodies for stew and a begger that tried to knife a septa in the back, none. No clue if he was trying to be a hero or if he just wanted to stab someone, one of the septons cut his throat before I could spare the time to check," Zara admitted, not particularly concerned about the beggar or the butcher.

'You should head to the courtyard, the stars are wrong,' Myst told the girls with telepathy.

'What do you mean wrong?' Dawn asked, curious if something had dropped the keep in another dimension.

'I mean the maester doesn't recognize any of them and the big dipper is distinctive,' Myst replied with amusement, trying to find the humor in things, mostly because he knew he was going to have to deal with hundreds of messages over the next couple of days from lords worried about the day turning to night.

'Are you saying we're back on Earth?' Dawn asked excitedly.

'Debatable, the Wheel of Time is supposed to be a version of Earth but none of the continents match which means we're probably in another age,' Myst explained.

'Wheel of Time?' Zara asked.

'It's a book series from back home!' Dawn replied excitedly as she started running towards the courtyard.

'Knowing our luck, we're probably going to have to deal with a dark god,' Myst warned them.

'Wouldn't be the first time,' Zara said cheerfully as she followed Dawn, wishing she had her guild with her.

'How do you know where we are?' Laurena asked as she started heading towards the courtyard.

'One of my prize wheels dropped a magical globe that shows the world it's on. I recognize the continents. Westeros or at least most of it was dropped into the ocean between the Westlands and the Seanchan Empire,' Myst explained.

'How dangerous is the Seanchan Empire?' Laurena asked.

'Picture an empire where every commander is on par with the best the alliance has or better, now add the ability to murder the idiots under your command without repercussions and give them combat mages that have decades or centuries of practice with combat magic,' Myst explained, figuring he'd leave explaining the various exotic animals they used for later.

'Lovely,' Zara complained. 'Are there any landmarks you can use to narrow the timeline down?'

'Check out Shadar Logoth, you should be able to see the changes on the map,' Dawn suggested as she ran up the stairs, knowing the city had been turned into a crater in one of the later books that should be visible on the map.

'Good point,' Myst replied as he checked the area where Shadar Logoth should be. 'It's not a crater but it's not a functioning city.' He looked at the borderlands and noticed that Malkier was covered by the sickly purple and brown crap that indicated the blight. 'Malkier is gone which means we're somewhere after the fall and before Shadar Logoth was destroyed.'

'How good is the resolution on the globe? Can you check Emond's Field for signs of damage?' Dawn asked as she ran over to the doors that led to the courtyard.

'In theory,' Myst replied as he opened his upgrade menu and looked at the globe, curious if he could turn it into something that would let him keep track of battles in real time. He pushed mana into improving the 'zoom' function until he could zoom in on a fist sized rock. He pushed a bit of mana into upgrading the globe's ability to label things then focused on Emond's Field, bringing up an image of a sleepy looking village.

"Looks peaceful," Elia mused as Dawn and Zara walked into the courtyard.

Oberyn laughed. "You mean boring…" he trailed off as he saw a monstrous humanoid enter the picture carrying a torch. "That's new."

"Sorry," Myst said as he used his copy of Magick's power to open a portal to the town in the globe. "Kill the monsters."

"You're the best," Zara told him as she dashed through the portal. She took a scent to look around then sprinted towards the closest group of monsters and unleashed a cone of cold at the animal headed monsters when she got within range, freezing them solid and causing them to shatter. "Trash!" she shouted as she unleashed a barrage of arcane missiles on the trollocs coming towards her. "Death to the monsters!"

Dawn jumped through the portal and started tossing frostbolts at the monsters, trying to avoid collateral damage since people were out and about fighting the monsters and she didn't have a decent method of bringing people back to life if she missed. "Firestorm!" she shouted as she gestured and dropped a flame strike on a group of trollocs and a fade, causing them to get reduced to ashes.

'I was expecting more of a challenge,' Zara sent to Dawn as she continued sniping the monsters with frostbolts as she ran through town.

'You're wearing artifacts and relics, what were you expecting?' Dawn asked as she tossed a ball of fire into a group of trollics, reducing half of them to ash and killing the rest instantly when it exploded.

'Something,' Zara replied as a man without eyes stepped out from behind a house. "Damn, you're ugly."

"Die witch-" the fade cut off as Zara's barrage of arcane missiles blew it apart.

"So much for finding the boss," Zara grumbled as she went back to killing the rest of the monsters.

"Are you going through?" Ser Barristan asked Myst.

Myst glanced at Elia then looked back at the portal. "Let's give Dawn and Zara a chance to kill the rest of them."

Laurena teleported down from the balcony then jumped through the portal and swapped her tracking skill to humanoids when nothing showed up on her demon radar. 'Seventeen left.'

Dawn pulled her wand and blasted a trolloc trying to drag someone into the woods, the beam of holy light from the end of her wand causing the creature to explode. 'Sixteen. This would be easier if we had a priest with holy nova.'

Laurena grinned as she summoned her pet bear. "Kill the monsters!"

Moiraine Damodred stared as a couple of strangers in weird clothes obliterated the last of the trollocs and killed a fade by putting an arrow through its head. "They won't stay dead until morning."

'I'm not seeing any more garbled names on my radar,' Laurena told the group as she quickly put five arrows into the corpse that was flailing around, pinning its arms and legs to the ground and putting another arrow through its head. "I can wait."

Dawn gestured and blasted the fade with a frostbolt, causing its writhing to stop, mostly because the monster froze solid then broke apart. "Looks dead to me."

Moiraine stared at Dawn, surprised that she hadn't felt or seen anything when the girl had used a strange weave to kill the fade. "How did you do that?"

Dawn glanced at the blue stone hanging from a silver chain on the woman's forehead. "My name is Dawn, I'm a magic user in good standing with the Kirin Tor."

"Can you heal?" Moiraine asked as she started hustling towards the Wisdom's house, making a mental note to ask about the Kirin Tor later.

"I can conjure food that heals but I can't deal with cursed wounds," Dawn told her as she followed her, curious if her magical water would help restore the Aes Sedai's energy. 'Assuming remove curse doesn't cure the crap, I should probably check that. If it doesn't we'll have to be more careful.'

Myst gestured at the portal. "After you, the monsters are dead and this should be a decent chance for some answers."

Ser Barristan glanced at Ser Gerold then stepped through the portal and took a couple of steps forward as he looked around the town filled with people running around, trying to put out fires.

Oberyn grinned and walked through the portal, figuring it would alleviate the boredom and keep him from having to deal with the political shitstorm in the capital.

"Stay safe," Elia ordered, less worried than she would be if she didn't know about his magical defenses.

"Keep my mother and sister safe," Myst ordered Gerold. "I'll be back in a couple of hours." He stepped through the portal and closed it behind him before Ser Gerold could follow him, knowing the man didn't understand low profile or at least he was reasonably sure he didn't.

Ser Barristan glanced around then looked at Myst. "Where are we going?"

"Give me a second," Myst replied as he opened his upgrade menu and looked at the town. 'Houses, material, not that one… not on fire, that works.' He spent the mana to boost the percentage of the buildings not on fire to 100% then closed his upgrade menu. "Let's head to the inn, the girls can help with the wounded. By the way, don't mention that I have magic, there are local issues with magic and males that I'll explain later."

"Understood," Ser Barristan agreed, making a mental note to have a chat with the king about his abilities when he had a chance. "Where is the inn?"

"It's the only stone building," Myst replied as he started walking towards the stone building with a redstone roof, looking forward to making and sharing some skill books and relaxing a bit before he jumped back to King's Landing to deal with politics and whining nobles.