Celestial Hymn 8 (Patreon)

Celestial Hymn
Chapter 8

-VB-

For all of the power bestowed upon me, physical prowess remained elusively out of my reach.

“FUCK!” I hissed as I stumbled across the finish line after running my thirtieth lap around the courtyard alongside my men-at-arms, or the Westerosi equivalent to them.

As I said (to myself), I lacked any talent in physical acts even before I got Celestial Forge. The one thing I was good at, swimming, wasn’t that useful here or for any lords and knights. To that end, I needed to manually increase my physical “stat” so that I could be better. It was one of the reasons why I gave my master-at-arms free reign on my training.

I regretted it.

I crashed and flopped merely a few yards past the finish line. Slamming into the ground with my hands and knees, I coughed and sucked in air as quickly as I could.

In front, side, and behind me, my men-at-arms did the same.

“Slave… driver…!” someone gasped like they were dying from asphyxiation, and I agreed with him.

“Took all of you long enough for that thirty!”

I pulled my head up and glared at the owner of the voice. Posing and smirking, my normally stoic master-at-arms was indeed a slave driver.

A sadistic slave driver.

“The human body is capable of more than mere thirty laps around this tiny courtyard! Be grateful that you’re only running thirty!” he snapped too giddily for any of our liking. “Up, up! Sitting down like that will only leave you cramped later! Walk around! Don’t sit or stand! Up, up!”

I groaned as I stood up on shaky legs and did as I was told. All around me, my soldiers did the same.

What made this uncomfortable was that we all wore some manner of armor. Most of us, including me, wore thickly padded gambeson to simulate battlefield conditions. In a battlefield, my men-at-arms would have to fight and run in this armor, so it was only natural that we trained in them. While gambesons would not provide the same protection as full plate armor, they were lighter to wear, cheaper to make, and easier to fix.

I paused as the Forge lit up for a moment before … Huh. Nothing. Ugh. Whatever.

“Milord, your part of training is done for the morning! Come back after lunch for sword lessons!” Under the envious gaze of the men-at-arms, I ran out of the courtyard as fast as my legs would carry me. It was prudent for me to disappear from the master-at-arms’ sight before he changed his mind.

-VB-

After an hour of rest, lunch excluded, and two hour long lesson with my master-at-arms, I found myself overseeing the work of the servitors.

When they suddenly appeared in the workshop, I had to think of a bullshit on the spot. To that end, the master-at-arms and the blacksmith now “knew” that I had a dealing with a Essosi warlock across the Narrow Sea.

I swore them to secrecy not because it involved magic, but I reasoned that the existence of a tireless worker that wasn’t human would upset a lot of authorities.

When the blacksmith, a rather devout man, asked if this wasn’t slavery, I tore open one of the servitor’s arms to show him the wonders of mechanical engineering. While the sight of machine underneath the skin appeased one particular concern for the blacksmith, the man was now thoroughly inspired.

I digressed.

These cybernetic human workers needed some manner of oversight. While each of them possessed intelligence, it was someone closer to a machine than a person’s.

I looked over the new furnace they had made behind four walls of cheap curtain. It wasn’t that technologically advanced, not significantly compared to what the rest of Planetos used, but it was the start of a proper foundry. The purpose of this furnace was to help me mass produce high quality iron using reverberatory melting, which was basically a method of indirectly heating up the melt. Furnaces in medieval Earth and Planetos had metals directly touching the fuel for the heating.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure if this furnace would work properly, which was exactly why servitors were building and testing this under my direction and supervision.

“Slowly tilt the furnace!” I shouted to them from a hundred yards away, flinching as their two pronged graspers - not hands - pushed and pulled at the metal chains that I had them attach to the furnace for this very purpose.

I grimaced when one of the servitors pulled too hard and the open top of the furnace came swinging down. Molten melt flowed out, but there were solid chunks, too.

“Ah, damn it,” I grumbled. “Okay, that design is a failure. We need better way to do this.”

Discovery and knowledge came with experimentation, and I would persevere.

… why did it have to be prohibitively expensive, though?

-VB-

Tywin stared at the marvelous portrait of his granddaughter.

He came to King’s Landing for the latest tourney, and ended up seeing the picture.

It was … so lifelike.

He continued to stare at it, absorbing every little detail. Everything from the minor creases of the dress, the attention to the hair, and how the smile seemed to make the day brighter made this portrait one of the best portrait he had seen in his lifetime.

It made him decide on his next course.

‘I must have one.’