Robert, Ned and their party reached Old Town three days before the wedding, the journey took near a month and they could see the Hightower a day and a half away, it made its presence known in yesterdays nights sky with its ever burning flame, a beacon which served many a ships as a lighthouse in storms and as a call for gathering banners when the flame burned green during times of war, so high above, it boggled the mind, while Ned read that Hightower stands higher than the Wall, it was something else to see. Their party was welcomed at the City gates by a group of men at arms in Hightower livery led by a dirty blonde haired blue eyed man of Neds age, who introduced himself as Ser Garth Hightower, second son to Lord Leyton Hightower and led them to an expansive and beautifully decorated mansion near the Battle Isle upon which the Hightower is situated, while Neds and Roberts party would have been invited to rest at the Hightower itself in any other time, this was not any other time, its the wedding of the year and with the death of Lord Tywin Lannister political landscape of Westeros has irrevocably changed, anyone who is any importance in Seven Kingdoms has been waiting for a congregation of powers that be to gauge the changed political climate of Westeros, Ned got a missive from Rhaegar before his departure that even Rhaegar will be attending as a representative of Royal family. This wedding is the political event of the year.
On that thought Ned retired to his rooms for a short nap before the evening meal.
Ned returned to the world of the waking after a two hour nap. Once he cleared his head of cobwebs of sleep and exhaustion Ned dropped into meditation and started visualizing his newest spell, it was a basic shape of nine concentric circles with twenty seven spokes radiating from the center, while the first circle has a radius of a single feet, the last circle has the radius of nine feet, once visualizing of the spell finished, Ned manifested the spell into world with his magic and anchored the spell around the height of his chest with his own heart as the center and set the whole structure spinning, while Ned couldn't see the spell and the magic that powers it with his own eyes, he could feel it and he held the image of the spell with an iron grip in his mind. Ned could make himself believe that he could almost see the gossamer threads of power he painstakingly wove. This spell is the final product of three months of unrelenting determination and hard work. While the spell does not do what Ned set out to do, it fulfills the purpose in a close enough manner and has some additional benefits. While partial bonds which allow Ned to read other living beings mind is what Ned wanted the spell to do, the spell does something similar yet different, as the spell starts spinning, whenever a living being enters the area of spells influence, which is a circle with nine feet radius, the threads of magic snap as they encounter living entities and reform once passing them according to Neds mental image, the moment of snapping is where the spells purpose is fulfilled, as the threads break that breakage alerts Ned to the presence and position of another living entity and for an infinitesimally small moment when Ned is directly connected to another entity and Ned gets a very very very brief impression of their emotional state. And since the spell keeps spinning Ned gets a continuous stream of information about other party. Ned decided to name the spell Awareness Web.
The Awareness Web is by no means a perfect spell. It has many many problems that needs solving, for the start, it consumes truly ridiculous amounts of magical energy, even with three months of practice Ned couldn't keep up the spell for more than ten minutes without completely bottoming out his reserves, it used to be that Ned could keep the Web up for only two minutes in the beginning. Another problem is that the Web requires continuous focus, it requires Ned to always hold his visualization of the Web in his mind, its like writing two different letters with his two hands, like having two different conversations with different people about different topics, if Ned loses concentration for even a second the Web collapses on itself. Another problem is processing and understanding the stream of information the Web provides, if it wasn't for the countless hours Ned spent in meditation over the years utilizing the Web would have been an impossibility. For all these problems there is only one solution Ned could find and that is practice, it is going to take years upon years and countless hours of practice to make the Awareness Web spell viable for constant use, after-all the spells energy consumption improved and Neds ability to visualize and hold the image of the spell improved by leaps and bounds from the time when Ned could not even walk while deploying the spell, while Ned still couldn't parse apart all the nuances of the impressions of the emotional states he got from the Web, Ned could at least vaguely understand other party's primary emotion.
For all of its problems, the Awareness Web can be a powerful tool in Neds arsenal, useful both in political and martial arena, on the battlefield alongside his enhanced senses and balance Ned will always have greater spatial awareness than anyone, with the ability to observe enemy strikes even from his blind-spots and in political arena Ned will have the ability to truly gauge his targets emotions whatever their face might try to portray. To enjoy all these benefits I only need to practice unrelentingly, and I will. Awareness Web is too powerful a tool to ignore, this spell even with its myriad problems already helped me, otherwise how would I have known about the true depth of Roberts regard and affection for me or how envious and jealous Stannis felt about my friendship with Robert, if I hadn't known that, I would not have leveraged Roberts regard for me to encourage Robert to be more mindful of how his words could hurt his brother and I would not have tried and succeeded in connecting with Stannis in my last two months of stay at Storms End. Now Robert is more mindful of his tongue and Stannis is a friend. If practice is only price for these kind of benefits, its a small price to pay.