Celestial Hymn 48 (Patreon)

Celestial Hymn

Chapter 48

-VB-

Celestial Forge came and went again, leaving me with another bundle of shining essence stored up and unused.

Dorne remained pacified, for now, and they also weren’t involved in the poisoning. This, of course, left me with the obvious problem of who might have poisoned Myrcella. That was another problem I had to deal with on top of a new problem I found myself dealing with.

Yeah, see, it’s impossible to synthesize Element Zero with my current technology level.

Element Zero and the subsequent Eezo-derived faster-than-light drive had been my only way off of this planet and system in my plan. I thought I could. Why not, right? I had been convinced by my own superiority on this tiny world that I didn’t even bother to check.

Just like the final boss villains not checking if the person he trusted that super secret kryptonite to was actually trustworthy and not connected to the heroes coming to kill him. Now, I was paying for my hubris. I had created perhaps the biggest goddamn weapon on this planet that not even the dragons could compare to, showed it off for all to see, and had no way to leave the planet and leave its problems behind.

Oh sure, I could fly somewhere else that wasn’t Westeros. Perhaps even explore what might be on the other side of the Sunset Sea.

But, yeah, I doubted that it would be a better place than Westeros. Like seriously, Westeros only had to deal with ice demons sleeping for eons while Essos had to deal with Dothraki, slavers, whatever the fuck was happening the Shivering Sea, Sothoryos and its haunted jungles, whatever bullshit was happening on the other side of Yi-Ti, Asshai, and the wastelands that were the islands of Valyria.

Okay, so maybe Yi-Ti might be about as good as Westeros but that didn’t say much. After all, if Yi-Ti was as good and/or bad as Westeros, what was their version of the ice demons?

Leaving was the best option. After all, I might get cursed by some woodwitch while I’m out and about exploring.

As I continued to mentally rant to myself as I and my acolytes made our way back to Brownspear Barony, I abruptly stopped as the Celestial Forge spun up again. Twice in one sitting? That never happened before.

I waited with bated breath as this new phenomenon carried on with a familiar process. The Forge … fumbled?

And then I realized what was being fumbled: each shining essence was worth at least a star’s worth of energy. Horrified by the accident happening somewhere AND CONNECTED TO ME, I braced. Some of my acolytes noticed but didn’t say anything. Sorry to you guys if the Forge fucked up and I exploded apocalyptically.

But then it settled itself and dropped me another power.

And I burst out laughing. It was almost as if the Forge understood my problem and tried to help! I didn’t know what an Omni-Metal was but the fact that I instinctively knew it could be used for warp drives? That I suddenly knew it could be used to cross dimensions? And having metric shit-tons of it?

My problem just got solved. I just needed to research and substitute Eezo FTL drive with…

Ah, shit. That’s going to take longer than the Great Council, wasn’t it?

I did a quick mental math.

Yeah. The experimentation alone was going to take a few weeks. Construction of prototypes would take twice that long with my powers.

… Shit, I was actually going to have to see through the Great Council, wasn’t I?

… Didn’t I promise - more implied but the point stood - Little Stark that I was going to put a mage tower up there for the North to learn magic? Or at least be ensured that I wouldn’t nuke the shit out of them?

-VB-

The Great Crisis as it is known today came close to becoming an all-out war for the Iron Throne itself. The death of King Robert Baratheon the First of his name, the assassination of his son, Joffrey Baratheon, the second king of the Baratheon Dynasty, and then the attempted assassination via poisoning on Princess Myrcella Baratheon could have plunged the realms into chaos; the realms have been plunged into chaos for lesser causes before in Westeros’ history.

When everyone else looked to see how much they can gain from the chaos, the First Mage Lord declared himself regent for King Tommen Baratheon and began to negotiate with Lord Paramounts for a Great Council. However, it was during this period of peace that Princess Myrcella Baratheon was poisoned, and had it not been for the Mage Lord’s magic, which remains unknown to this day, she would have died.

Since poisoning was involved and because she was the granddaughter of one Lord Tywin Lannister, the enemy of Martells of Dorne due to the events that occurred during the Sack of King’s Landing during Robert’s Rebellion, the Martells became the primary suspect for the attempted assassination.

The First Mage Lord took to this attempt unkindly as he was the betrothed to the princess. He took one of his greatest project, a flying warship (a feat that reminas , to Dorne to inquire. According to eyewitness accounts and documents recovered from that time period, the Mage Lord provided a truth discerning magical artifact.

Despite the heavy-handed usage of his magical powers and the mysterious flying construct, Dorne remained mostly ambivalent toward the Mage Lord. Part of this had to do with Lord Doran Martell’s gout, or rather how the Mage Lord healed the lord’s gout and taught him how to keep it from returning. The second reason was due to what they got in exchange: the truth-discerning necklace that we now call the Martell Teller. The ability to discern not just the intent but the loyalty of their own vassals greatly improved the Martell’s political and judicial power to unprecedented heights. It was not enough for the Martells, who did not participate in the initial rush to call and arm their banners, to join the Great Council, but it also kept them compliant enough to accept the Great Council’s ruling once it was shown that they would not lose out much by accepting and a lot to lose by rejecting.

While this visit by the First Mage Lord became the final stop before the Great Council some six months later, he visited a number of other Lord Paramounts and significant figures prior to visiting Dorne; he met Lord Stannis Baratheon, Lord Renly Baratheon, Lord Mace Tyrell and Lady Olenna “Queen of Thorns” Redwyne, and Lord Rob Stark. In recorded autobiographies of his acolytes and future Mage Lords, it has been recorded that the First Mage Lord deliberately chose not to visit the Lord Paramounts of the Riverlands, Vale, and the Iron Islands because they had little choice in the matter, too weak to matter, or was plunging head first toward civil war. The Martells of Dorne initally also fell into this category but the attempted assassination brought them to the First Mage Lord’s attention anyway.

Historians today note that this had been a deliberate move on the First Mage Lord’s part because he recognized that if the lords he met chose not to fight and attend the Great Council, then the others would have to follow as not only did they lack the political influence to gainsay the Great Council, they also lacked the manpower and/or economy to wage any kind of protracted war in the first place…

An excerpt from the History of Post-Targaryen Westeros, published in 1299 AC, Lannisport Mage Tower Publications.

-VB-

Perks gained this chapter.

11.012 Store of Omni-Metal (300): A cargo ship carrying 40 million cubic feet of omnimetal, enough to build several buildings' worth. They predate the current multiverse by a large margin, and are especially attuned to the nature of spatial dimensions. Because of this they're extremely useful in technology involving warping space and bridging between dimensions, making building such creations far easier than they would be otherwise. Your supply is restocked at the beginning of each jump or 10 years.

A/N: forgot to do a roll last chapter, so I did it at the start here and the accumulated words triggered another roll.

A/N 2: as most of you know, I really do roll these things in this fic instead of picking and choosing like I do in Kick the Sphere.

A/N 3: please note that history seen from the future definitely distorts what actually happened. IE Alan didn’t declare himself to be a regent now, did he?