Chapter 4
It was one thing to read about the specifications of Casterly Rock in words, but seeing and actually having the opportunity to explore it was a whole different matter.
At two leagues wide or some six miles and twenty-one hundred feet high, Casterly Rock was truly a structure that could only exist inside a fantasy book.
I vaguely remembered George stating the creation of Casterly Rock was inspired by his visit to the Rock of Gibraltar. After all the time I had spent exploring, I must assume that George thought it was weak shit before deciding to make Casterly Rock triple the size.
If the sheer size and scope of Casterly Rock weren't overpowered enough, George also decided to add on the fact that it had to be filled with literal fucktonnes of gold as well.
It was like The Wall, utterly ridiculous in size and scope.
But it was home and now that I was living in it, I thought it was really cool. I could see why the Lannisters got all high and mighty and Visenya definitely had a point. Casterly Rock was damn near impervious against attacks.
Unlike the show, my home wasn't a castle in the traditional sense. The show made Casterly Rock a castle atop a mountain beside the Sunset Sea, but that wasn't the case at all. The ancient Casterlys did at one point have a ringfort atop the mountain to protect their precious gold mines though eventually, as the millennias passed and the tunnels of Casterly Rock grew like roots through the mountain, more and more did the lords of Casterly Rock chose to expand their castle inwards into the Rock itself rather than outwards until one day, the miners of Casterly Rock burst out the bottom of the Rock.
That single land entrance became the Golden Gate today. After that, the stone-carved paths that wound and snaked up the once-existing ringfort were demolished by the expert miners of Casterly Rock, ensuring the only way to ever attack the Rock was to breach the Golden Gate at the base of the mountain and fight their way through the small tunnels if they ever wished to claim the Rock by force.
The tunnels throughout the Rock were akin to a seething hive of ants, all running and crisscrossing through our little tunnels which had been slowly carved throughout it over a span of thousands of years.
Casterly Rock itself was mostly segregated through several different layers. The highest layers were the most ancient and it was there the main Lannister branch resided. It had all the accommodations required for a family of our wealth, power, and legacy. Libraries, septs, galleries, grand banquet halls, courtyards, storerooms, kitchens, barracks, training halls, privies, armories, bedchambers, larders, baths, treasuries, crypts, and even gardens where we could grow stuff. A person could live their entire life inside the Rock and need for nothing.
Below the topmost Lannister level, it went down in importance and prestige until you got to the lowest levels where the mining was actively taking place.
Fun fact, Casterly Rock had elevators. Well, that term would be inaccurate, it had winch systems scattered throughout the rock and at varying levels to bring things up and down as needed. It was mostly used for goods and supplies but there were also elevators dedicated to bringing people up and down.
I guess that was what Father used to get in and out of the Rock? I suddenly had a sudden image of Tywin Lannister, gross, sweaty, and utterly out of breath after walking up four thousand steps to get to the top level of Casterly Rock.
No, that would be unseemly of course, for a man of his bearing and station. Being winched up like a sack of grain is so much more dignified.
Ha!
I guess that's why we had people exclusive winches in place so no one dares to make the comparison.
Opulence, thy surname be Lannister.
If there was one complaint about living in the Rock, it was the fact it was fucking dark as hell. This wasn't a modern world with fluorescent lightning which could bring a semblance of daylight to the darkest of places.
No, we were in the age of fire.
And using fire as a light source sucked ass.
It was better in the topmost Lannister inhabited areas where we did carve windows out of the stone to bring in natural daylight but that was limited at best.
At least I was practicing my seismic sense.
I glared at the wall, my annoyance getting the better of me. Lady-like decorum be damned!
I had spent weeks prowling these ROB damned tunnels like the absolute greedy little loot goblin I was. As the daughter of Tywin, no door was barred from me and I abused that privilege to hell and back for I was a woman on the hunt.
On the hunt for goodies. I'd read enough stories where Winterfell had cool stuff hidden away in its bowels so I thought I would try the same for Casterly Rock. I mean we've been around nearly as long as they had so surely there was something here for me.
Every little nook and definitely every cranny was searched thoroughly.
Ancient secrets and hidden lore? Oh my! Enchanted weapons of a bygone era that had magically endured the passage of time? Yes, please! Perhaps a hidden vault overflowing with gold? Mama would like! Magical spell tomes from an era long past? Don't mind if I do!
Or even the holy grail of all finds – dragon eggs!
Avatar Roku had a dragon, so why not Avatar Cersei?
Give it to me ROB! This is my isekai adventure, after all, there's no need to be shy.
But I had found nothing.
Nada.
Zilch.
No dragons, no gold, no magical secrets.
Only sheer disappointment.
Casterlys, you utterly boring fucks!
Well, I did find a cache of weapons which I was pretty sure belonged to the Casterlys judging by the fact that the weapons were cast from bronze which was a distinct First Men thing. Unfortunately, they had long been oxidized to uselessness and I couldn't even claim the find as they were hidden away in a tunnel I should have had no way of accessing without earthbending.
I stomped the floor again, sending out another active seismic ping into the surrounding area. My natural earth sense told me it was a pointless endeavor but might as well get the practice in.
A snapshot of the world lit up in my inner mind before it started to fade away.
Yup. Nothing around me but solid stone and a distinct lack of hidden caverns or tunnels. How dissappointly drab.
I turned around and the servants who were watching me awkwardly rapidly bowed while ducking their heads before hastily continuing on their way.
That'll probably add to the gossip making its rounds through the Rock.
Looking at it from their perspective, they just witnessed their lord's daughter looking angry and throwing a tantrum at a seemingly random stretch of wall, even stomping her feet at it as if taking umbrage at the very existence of it.
I sighed. My reputation was shot through anyway, might as well add ill-tempered onto it as well. Hmm. Cersei is sounds rather similar to Xerxes. Shall I have the wall whipped for its impudence?
I dragged my feet forward and continued my search. It wasn't as if I didn't find anything, I did encounter some hidden tunnels but they were all in the upper layers, where it had been first inhabited by the Casterlys. I suspect they were meant to be avenues of counterattack if the worst had happened and hostile armies broke into the Rock itself.
The further down we went, the less I found of these hidden tunnels. It guessed it must have been after House Lannister took over control of the Rock and stopped carving them out.
This endeavor was mostly a bust but I wasn't giving up! Perhaps there would be stuff in the lower levels.
At least that was for another day as my patience was exhausted. I turned and made my way to start ascending the Rock once more to reach the hidden tunnels where I could practice my bending more openly. I wanted a change of pace so it was waterbending time! I had originally struggled to find a way to practice my waterbending because there wasn't a whole lot of water for me to use and I didn't want to go trekking all the way down to the base of the Rock where the protected docks of Casterly Rock lay.
Luckily for me, I had a fortuitous encounter in the hidden tunnels. One of them had an enormous cistern built into it which was full. It even had overflows keeping it topped off and the water somewhat flowing to alleviate stagnation. I was pretty sure that it was meant to be a source of fresh water for a defending force considering how much larger it was than the other cisterns I had run into and the fact it was so tucked away. Well, that and it was in the same tunnels as the cache of oxidized weapons after all.
I sure as hell wouldn't drink out of it but it was more than enough to suit my waterbending needs.
Slowly, the comparatively cramped tunnels of the mid-levels started to widen and became more adorned with expensive and lavish decorations, indicating I was approaching the upper levels. I swung off to the side, into a long abandoned mine tunnel. These were everywhere and not all of them were used or expanded upon.
Pitch black it may have been, my steps were steady. A combination of familiarity with the area, earth sense, and seismic sense ensured I wasn't walking into a wall with each step of mine constantly sending out slight pings into the rock around me. I don't think I would ever be as adept as Toph Beifong was with the skill, but I doubted anyone ever could be. Yet it didn't mean I wasn't willing to try.
My seismic sense had two modes to it when I broke it down. They were akin to sonar in my past life, passive and active.
Passive meant I only listened to what was happening around me, contributing nothing to the noise. The information I received tended to be of lower quality, fuzzier to say but it was enough to get a good gist of what was around me though some of the finer details tended to be muted.
Active was when I stomped, sending out a ping into the world which got me better and more detailed information, and from a further distance away too.
I suspected that Toph Beifong's seismic sense did not really differentiate between the two states. Her mastery of earthbending and perhaps her blindness forced her seismic sense to grow to levels unreachable by normal people and the woman probably pulled more information passively than I could actively. I was pretty confident it was for that reason Lin Beifong was shown to stomp whenever she needed to use her seismic sense, which was the same reason I did – we just weren't as good as Toph.
Eventually, my dark tunnel hit a dead end of tumbled stones and rocks, indicating the tunnel had collapsed at some point.
Walking to the side of the tunnel, I bent a section of stone away before walking into it and resealing it shut behind me.
I could not help the surge of delight which swept through me. This was my space. My private little hideaway. Something every small child wanted and I couldn't help but be excited about mine. It was a secret place only accessible to me and my bending.
Maybe I should earthbend a sign into the wall.
NO GIRLS ALLOWED!
Wait no, I was a girl now.
NO GROWN UPS ALLOWED!
That's better. However, I didn't think my fine control of earthbending was at the level of Yun. I could understand how he did it, I just wasn't there myself yet.
Someday soon, I would have to show this to Jaime because I didn't want to hide this aspect of myself from him but that day was not today.
I followed my little earthbent tunnel which ran parallel to the collapsed main tunnel. After nearly a minute of walking, I eventually came out behind the mess of stone and rocks. I was pretty confident the reason for the collapse behind me was done not by time, but rather by intention.
After these tunnels had been carved out, they likely collapsed the main entrance of it, leaving only side entrances. Unfortunately for me, most of those were not very useful. Some lead to other abandoned tunnels, others into other deeper mineshafts, some into places that were still actively being used which meant I couldn't get into or out conspicuously. This was the easiest entrance for me and not very far from where I slept.
One day, I hoped to carve my own tunnel connecting this place to my room to reduce travel time.
Eventually, I reached the cistern, a deep and large hole in the ground, and I started by manipulating the water, pulling streams out of it into the air.
The water swirled about me, beholden to my will. I wasn't doing any kind of advanced technique, merely practice. One cannot spend all their time shooting basketballs when you don't first practice how to dribble.
To earthbend, you commanded the stubborn earth to your will whereas waterbending was more like sternly asking it to flow in this direction instead of whichever it naturally wanted.
I wasn't sure about firebending or airbending yet. For one, I found myself in a similar situation with Korra, both of us having a difficult time trying to figure it out. I knew airbending was a highly spiritual art compared to the others. There was even one lady in the Kyoshi novels whose airbending weakened as her spirituality suffered.
Spirituality. What in ROB's name is that supposed to mean? I pondered it often hoping to overcome my struggle since I still haven't been able to even conjure forth the slightest breeze. If someone came up and told me they were a highly spiritual person, I would take it that they were heavily into a religion of some sort but that wouldn't be the right answer here. I did not remember Korra nor Kyoshi being particularly spiritual and I myself sure wasn't either.
In the end, I decided to give up on it temporarily and to leave it for last.
My focus was earthbending and waterbending since I wasn't willing to risk burning myself accidentally with firebending until I could heal myself… Or Mama Jo.
According to the butterfly effect, there shouldn't be any reason for me to worry about Tyrion. My own existence might have potentially in turn invalidated his which might have been sad but it wasn't him I was worried about.
Mother and father would try for another child, no doubt about that, and that would put Mama Jo at risk. The battleground of men were out in the fields whereas women were in the birthing chamber.
I didn't want her to die. I didn't want Tywin to lose his smile. I didn't want Tyrion to suffer under Tywin's non-existent mercies if he was somehow still born a dwarf by chance. I didn't want Jaime to lose his mother. In the end, I was a little girl and I didn't want to lose my mommy.
Fuck canon.
I'm the avatar and I have the power to make my own destiny.
It was time to get to work.
