Chapter 2 - Discovery

I thought I might join the caravan and sneak into the city unnoticed, but as I walked out of the bushes and approached the many servants walking behind the carriage, a guard saw me and came running.

"Halt" he shouted with an authoritative tone. The people around me hardly reacted as they kept on walking. I asumed it must have been a normal occurrence. He stopped in front of me, his hand on his sword hilt.

"Tell me who you are and your business here"

Knowing my accent, I had to claim to be from Essos. I cleared my throat and tried to speak as clearly as possible. "My name is Nario, I am a visitor from Braavos, here to see the great Oldtown."

I didn't know anything about the state of the world, but I hoped the runaway slave hold still existed. I picked a common name amongst the slaves. The guard took a step back and narrowed his eyes, "aye, I can tell you ain't from round here, that's for sure. But if you a bravossi, why ain't you arriving by sea?"

I had seen a few small towns down the coast, so I responded: "Apparently, the captain of my ship was a wanted man in these part, something he neglected to share with me, when I paid him. He said he couldn't land around these parts but when I protested, he threw me overboard by a town not far from here"

He looked down at my pants, wet from Ragni hunting, and laughed: "I don't know if you a liar or a fool, but 'least you ain't armed. A mistake like that could cost ya 'round these parts"

"They kept my things on the boat, but I hid few coins on me before they threw me over the side. I could give you one, if I might follow you for the rest of the way." I said, smiling to the guard.

The guard looked puzzled for a moment, then said: "How bout this. I know a place to eat when we get there. You give me a meal, we call it even" I smiled and said: "Thank you friend"

"Hehe, it's you who is paying, what you thanking me for, eh? Though let me give ya a piece a' advice for da future. Never admit you'd be carrying coin to a stranger. You might be making up with a hole in da throat. Derek is the name." he replied, smiling.

We talked for a while before we reached the town. It seemed they were transporting a noble from the Hightower family, which was a family even I knew about. Derek taught me a lot about what was apparently the new center of the world, Westeros. Who was the leading noble families, and who sat on the "iron throne" was a popular topic on the road. I didn't understand what "Iron Throne" meant and asking anyone would be very suspicious, but I assumed it meant the seat of the king. It seemed that in Valyria's absence, the continent had been united under one kingdom, though I would have to read more about it to understand.

When we reached the city, the people in the train audibly expressed their amazement at the structure that greeted them. I personally wondered how you could possibly be impressed by a tall chimney, though now a suppose, it must be one of the tallest structures there was. That is unless the westerosi have massively improved their construction techniques.

The lady was deposited in some shabby looking estate in the city, as Derek showed me the "inn" we were staying at. I stopped myself from expressing any dissatisfaction but the quality of everything here was simply so much worse than I feared. I was famished from the long journey and dormant period so I needed food. Unfortunately, the bag of holding cannot store anything organic, though the magical nature of dragon eggs made them an exception.

I was given a weird looking pie and a wooden spoon. The taste was salty and almost rancidity but at least it was filling. Derek seemed to marvel at the meal, thanking me several times for paying. It was a coincidence that I happened to have copper and silver coins from Yunkai in my bag. They had been there for years, even before I went dormant, but now I had finally had a use for them. Two cups of ale were given to us, I merely gave mine to Derek, and asked for water, under the pretense that I didn't drink. As night came I said goodbye to Derek and walked up the stairs.

The room was even worse than the food. The bed was a stack of hay and some skins and it was even filled with lice. I cast a sterilization spell on the bed frame, before replacing it with my own sheets. Looking up at the uneven wooden ceiling, sighed to myself because I knew I would have to get used to this.

Morning came too soon, and I was still tired from the road. I reached out to Ragni confirming to him that I was alright, and went down to the common room for breakfast. When I saw what was served, I merely asked the bartender to give a message to Derek of my departure, and I then went towards the citadel.

On the way there, I stopped at a tailor shop and bought a pair of clothes that made me look like I wasn't a rich man, but I wasn't a commoner either. Careful with exposing my hair, I went through the citadel gates.

A very annoyed looking man greeted me as I walked up to the reception desk.

Not taking his eyes of whatever he was reading he asked me: "Can I assist you with something?"

I answered him: "Yes, my name is Nario. I am a historian specializing in Valyrian history. I have come all the way from Braavos to study and compare my historical notes to yours. I had also hoped to further our own records on the history of Westeros"

A story I had come up with last night in my room. This piqued the funny looking mans interest and he looked up at me. He pondered for a moment before saying: "We were not aware of this. Do you have a letter of validation from one of your seniors? We know several from the library in Braavos, though no one specializing in Valyrian history as you say you do."

I answered. "I am afraid not. It is as you say, there I no one apart from myself specializing in this subject in Braavos. This is a personal journey I paid for myself to help further our library. "

He looked at me skeptically and answered: "Is that so... Then I am afraid that I cannot let you into the inner sanctum of the citadel before a form of identification is produced."

"Dammit." I thought to myself. But then the man said: "You are permitted to use the library in the meantime. I believe most of the information you seek are located here, in any case."

I walked through the doors and a great hall filled with rows upon rows of books greeted me: "The library is very large, even larger than my family library" It took me a while before I found what I was looking for. I was shocked to find that more than 400 years had passed since Valyria stood. As I suspected it was the 14 flames that erupted. There was different account of what happened but I personally believe it was a magical experiment that caused them to unleashed their energy.

Perhaps it was even my mother who was the cause, since she seemed to be the only one that managed to react to it. I don't know, but it matters little now. I then turned my attention to Westeros and started reading its history.

The Targaryen family did indeed survive, and even conquered the seven kingdoms of the continent. Balerion was the name of the dragon they used. I remember it, the day the family left the freehold. I was watching it from my tower, friends around me laughing at his stupidity, me laughing with them. I would punch myself in the face if I could go back to that moment.

To think that dragon of a lesser bloodline could bring the world to heel, what couldn't Ragnirion do then. I cast my mind from the subject and focused on more reasont history. The dragons grew smaller and smaller obviously, but I had not expected them to have disappeared completely. I am suddenly enormously relieved that my family had a collection of fertile eggs waiting in a vault, and 4 ready in the bag of holding.

An idea struck me then. This might be the greatest tragedy in the world and to me personally. Everyone I had ever known, ever, was dead. But it also meant that any and all power that might stand in my way, was inconsequential compared to the one I had flying above me.

In the history books it said that the key to the Valyrian power was dragons, and that was true. However, there was something just as important, which wasn't mentioned in the books I found.

Contract magic. The magic that was used to bind the dragon race to our will in the first place. It is something we perfected over our long history, and without it we would have had massive internal wars many times. It surprised me, that nobody wondered how we managed to perfectly obey the laws we set for ourselves, why we were the only dragonlords in the world. And more importantly, how we managed to avoid any large scale violent conflicts in thousands of years of history, when it hardly took the Targaryen any time at all to kill their dragons through infighting.

Nobody wondered why Aenar Targaryen and his direct offspring never invaded Westeros or taught their magic to others. They were under contract, and thus were forced to obey, even after the doom, as it was called. Another thing to note was that magic seemed to have died out completely. It was no wonder of course, as the entirety of the magic outside of Valyria, was extremely limited, and lacked the foundational knowledge of magic principles and rules. It was all based of residual atmospheric magic, and without Valyria sending out magic like light from a beacon, their spells have nearly stopped working altogether.

They theorized that it was due to the fall of the dragons, which technically was the reason for their failures. Dragons are very powerful creatures and wherever they go, they radiate magic around them. The same could be said of the 14 flames, which was why Valyria was located and so concentrated around where they were, but now that was gone too.

If I was to launch a dynasty here, I would need to find and effective way of generating magic on a permanent basis. I sat pondering the outlines of possibilities before I was interrupted by a man clearing his throat loudly next to me. It was the man in the reception

He gazed at me with an almost contemptuous look and said: "I am afraid I must inform you, that you are no longer allowed on the premises."

I looked at him almost comically, no longer bothering with the respectful pretense, and asked why. He said through his teeth: " A scholar from Braavos have been entertained at the citadel for the past few days. I didn't wish to bother him, but as I met him in passing, I asked about you. He said he had never seen nor heard of you, and that there certainly was no historian specializing in Valyria in the library of Braavos."

I shrugged as I stood up and started walking towards the exit. He followed close behind, escorting me almost down to the streets. Before he closed the gate behind me I asked in passing "The books said nothing of the royalty of Valyria".

He answered with a sigh, probably wondering why he even bothered. "That is because there was no royalty in Valyria, that is why it was called the freehold".

"Yes, there was. A triarch of rulers, 3 families of royalty. One representing military, one representing wealth, one representing magic. In fact, all the records seem to mention are the families under the triarch of wealth, simply because they were the only ones, dealing with the outside world. There wasn't just 40 noble families, there was almost 100. If you bothered to count the large structures, even the ones standing today number much more than 40."

I could see surprise in his eyes, then disgust as he answered: "I don't know how you got your hands on Maester Wylmanns theory of Valyria, but I resent you for passing his theory on as your own, rejected or not"

"Who is Maester Wylmann?" I answered, to which he replied as he was closing the door behind him: "Someone who died 30 years ago".

I bought a leather bag and a variety of somewhat edible foods, and started walking out of the city. A lot was on my mind. I had learned more than just the history of old, I but also read copies of reports on the state of Westeros within the last few years. It seemed the king had recently died, and the iron throne which I now understood what was, had been taken over by his son, King Joffery.

From what I could tell from the execution of Eddark Stark and rebellion of the previous kings brothers, there was something wrong with his right to rule. Such information was unfortunately censored in the library and official history records. Even if he didn't have a real claim I doubt he would just abdicate the throne to me. What interested me more was the northern rebellion.

Although I had a very powerful dragon, I still needed an army to take control of anything I might conquer. Perhaps I could persuade them to help me take the throne, and as a repayment I could offer them revenge and some favoritism over the other kingdoms, like lower taxes, better trade deals etc. Even if Robb Stark proclaimed himself king in the north I doubt he would insist in the face of Ragnirion. Then there was the most interesting part I heard.

A Targaryen girl had survived the rebellion and she amazingly had managed to hatch 3 dragon eggs. From my understanding those eggs were very old, meaning she would have to have a very potent magic in her blood. I would face a dilemma though both because she fully intended to sit on the throne herself, but also she despised slavery, where I had been a slaver since infancy. My family owned almost a million slaves back then, and I never minded it. To be perfectly honest, I was rather indifferent to the whole thing, slavery was just such an important institution in Valyria, that abolishing it was not possible.

The entire basis for the Triarch of wealth was based on mining through slavery. This country seemed to do fine without it though, so maybe they were not a necessity for greatness. I would have to decide how I wanted to rule. It seemed like any attempt to reinstate slavery here would result in a lot of resistance, so perhaps I would have to do without it.

The night came and before long I called Ragni down to a spot in the surrounding forest, where I felt I was confident he would not be seen. As he landed and I hugged his head, the constant nervousness I had felt these two days finally dissipated.

Excited. Happy.

Ragni almost couldn't stop himself from whimpering but silently I managed to get onto his back, and we were up in the night sky. I decided that regardless of the outcome, atleast I would meet with this king in the north and see how he would handle the prospect of losing his crown.

Although I loved flying, this journey meant almost two days in the saddle which was not a pleasant trip but it was over land, so it gave me a chance to see more of this foreign place. But now I had to figute out wherever they had camp. I sighed at the prospect, but still, I urged Ragni north.