2

Chapter 2 Starting Over

I was five when our last protector died. Twelve assassination attempts. Willem Darry lived through twelve attacks and in the end he dies from a stupid robbery. The assassination attempts had taken there toll on him and he wasn't getting any younger.

From what I remember the Targaryen children ended up homeless and begging fairly early. It was a distant plot point before, but so much more relevant now.

I can even understand the reason behind the assassination attempts. The meetings we had all be dragged to and shown off in were not the doings of someone who was not an enemy. Also from the snatches of conversation I overheard I was gaining some amount of fame as well, which may have been a factor in the number of assassination attempts.

Oops. Well I knew I'd make waves, just didn't expect any this early.

Still, the fact that I understand the reasons does not keep me from being furious. I also want to wreak horrible bloody revenge on the Baratheons. The past few years had not been fun. No one my age should be able to claim to have survived a dozen assassination attempts. Not even the knowledge of the mess that is Robert's life is enough for me right now.

None of that mattered right now though. If I didn't do something our story will be cut short before it even began. As soon as the group of men had rushed Sir Darry we had all retreated to the room I shared with Daeny.

We're locked in our room right now listening to the robbers argue over whether to kill us or not. Hearing them debate on whether it would be worth it to find out who was sending assassins and selling us drives home a point.

Life here is cheap. There is no justice, there is only power. I had always suspected in my previous life that much of the softer societal norms were just indoctrinated behavior from an early age. Well, looks like I have my proof.

I look over at my siblings. Viserys has surprisingly turned out alright so far. He's still a bit annoying and arrogant, but that was more the fault of the guards talking about dragons and birthrights and other nonsense. Still, he's nice enough towards Daeny. He mostly just ignores me.

And of course these is my sister. Sweet Daeny who is very much an innocent. A bit quiet around strangers, but otherwise normal. She definitely was worth saving.

Well, looks like the time for hiding is past.

I move my writing desk over near the door and place a chair next to it. I'm going to need the height for what comes next. I then move a number of items into my hotbar. A set of nine slots that allow me to summon items directly into my hands, I usually leave it empty. I'm going to need it now.

Sadly I don't have too many items. Two swords and three knives I've managed to loot from the various assassins over the years and one of the guards who had died. Still, it'll have to do.

I take out a sword and hand it over to Viserys. I ignore his questions. It'll make a convincing distraction. Besides, he'd been training for a few years now, it might actually help. Or at least shouldn't hurt. I can hear footsteps, looks like time's up.

As soon as the door is open I'm in motion. I step off the chair onto the desk. A leap and I'm in the air. He doesn't see me, staring at the sword in Viserys' hand. Perfect. Right before I reach him I summon my last sword. Compared to me it's giant, a full greatsword, but I don't have any problems. Thank god for video game physics.

With a solid thunk the sword buries itself in his skull. I loot his sword and advance. I'm small and fast and have surprise on my side. I summon a dagger and bury in someones foot as I dive under the table.

Everyone's cursing and yelling at this point. I look around. Three left, one of them hurt. There were around ten when they broke in. It seems Sir Darry was quite formidable. I breathe a prayer for him.

One of them bends down to reach for me. I dart forward and summon my new sword. The point buries itself in his eye. It sticks but storing it again frees it.

One of them heads towards our room. Time to take a chance.

I sprint forward at the last person facing me. He's wary, taking me seriously. He swings as I get near. I shift my head to the side but otherwise ignore it. The shock of the blow staggers me, but as I hoped there wasn't any real pain. Just a slight irritating, just like any other scrape or bruise. The six health it takes off is manageable.

I feel a surge of energy and glance at my health. Full. I almost stumble in shock. Luckily it seems to have stunned the robber more.

I summon my sword and slash his other leg. In his shock he doesn't even try to dodge. I actually cut his leg off. Going to have to watch that. I might not actually regenerate limbs. Switching to a knife I climb on top of him. He tries to stop me but a quick slash and he can't grab me without fingers. Another cut and he's bleeding out from his throat. One left.

Inside the room it seems he's still fighting Viserys. Clearly he's not skilled. Viserys was well trained, but he's twelve. I don't waste the opportunity. I swing and cut across the back of both his legs. When he falls I step onto his back and stab down.

"Stay back" What the hell? Why is Viserys threatening me?

"Viserys you idiot. I just saved us." Douche.

"What you just did wasn't natural." Really? All that talk about magic and at the first sight of magic he calls it unnatural?

"It's magic you idiot. It's not supposed to be natural."

"No, there's always been something wrong with you. I guess you're finally not hiding it."

What the hell?

It was no use though. Viserys was bound and determined to believe I was some kind of evil demon. That didn't really bother me. What did bother me was Daeny hiding behind Viserys.

Hiding behind him from me.

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Screw them.

I tear apart the house, looting everything I can reach. I trail blood everywhere. I spare a moment to wonder if I'd have a better chance convincing them when I wasn't soaking in blood. A bit of it was my own. Not much though. A quick bite and I'd healed right up.

My siblings have long since left. I made them take most of the money. They're going to need it more than me. I'd wish them luck, but they would probably treat it as a curse the ungrateful jerks. They're probably off to buy passage somewhere far away. Doesn't matter.

Screw them.

What does matter though was my experience bar. The few items I had crafted hadn't given me any experience. Killing all of those men did. They gave me a lot. Suddenly I was level 38. Not bad for only four kills. Hopefully this works on more than just people.

I wash myself quickly before making my way to the market. No need to freak out anyone else. With no survivors everyone should still treat me as under to protection of Sir Darry. It should be safe enough for now.

Lorath trades steel swords with half it's trading partners. Thanks to that swords are fairly common. They're also practically another form of currency on the island. Viserys kept the sword I gave him, but still left me with ten.

A quickly constructed furnace had allowed me to melt down all the metal I could find. The Crafting Table is then made an additional four swords. Should be plenty.

It wasn't.

First the merchants apparently only deal in bulk. Second, the goods I want are all intended for sale for cotton, wool or silk, none of which I have. Lastly, because I was fucking robbed.

I wasn't mugged or anything, but this was worse. I approached on of the smaller stall owners and the rich jerk asks to inspect the blades. That was reasonable, but then he demands I leave and claims the swords were always his. What was I going to do, fight off his half dozen guards in public? No, this only had one appropriate response.

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In case I haven't emphasized it enough, on Planetos it's might makes right. Case in point Lorath doesn't have a police force. Indeed the majority of people who live here view taking up arms as beneath them. Even laborers generally get more respect than soldiers.

Instead the island is divided up into areas called Grants. Each Grant is ruled by a powerful merchant or craftsman. They in charge rule their little fiefs with whatever guards they hire from abroad. Assassination is a fairly common practice and since land only changes hands through the government, the guards are more concerned with guarding people than watching for thieves.

Not that thieves have it easy. Thieves are usually killed if not made sport of first. Which is just how pretentious people say torture.

However the important thing is that each Grant is it's own little kingdom and guards from one won't help another. Well, unless it's like a pirate raid or invasion. Which I am not going to count as.

I retreat back to the house. I don't really thing of it as home anymore.

Tearing up the bedding and using my inventory yields plenty of string. Too bad I can't really make any traps. Something to work on later. I do make a pair of bows. Now I just need arrows.

Sir Darry left a few quills, but I still need flint. Damn it. I can flake arrow heads from obsidian if I can find any chips large enough. Looks like I'm going out.

Wandering the docks as a child is much safer than you would think. You're too small to really steal anything important and too young to really be an assassin. The guards usually just ignore you. Usually.

"Well what do we have here? You lost?" Good lord. Heh, maybe honesty will help.

"I'm looking for a tiny piece of dragonglass sir. Can you help me find some?" I try looking innocent. I'm not sure if it works, but then again it's dark. He might not be able to see my expression.

"And just why are you looking for something like that?"

"I'm trying to make arrows so I can go hunting!"

We continue talking until I reveal I don't have any parents. At that point he grins and even I can see it's not nice. Just great. When he grabs me roughly I'm fed up. I summon a knife and start stabbing.

Stabbing in his groin causes him to crouch. It also keeps him from screaming by paralyzing him with pain. Once he bends down I cut his throat.

"Hey!" And of course he had a partner.

I run towards the other guard. "He just started coughing and fell over!"

I try to act freaked out. God I hope this doesn't draw more guards. As soon I'm close enough I leap and draw a sword. Snick. And down, just like a Jabberwocky.

Huh. The adrenaline might be making me a bit loopy. Although this is the second time I ended up covered in blood. Maybe I was in shock the first time?

As I sigh and stare down at the body I notice something. Score! He actually is armed with a bow. Alright, I'm no longer pissed. Even better, I check and they have metal arrowheads. I drop them into my Inventory and hold my breath. Come on, it worked with food before.

And success! I gain the recipe for metal arrowheads. Well arrows with metal heads. An ingot, stick and feather and I get four arrows. And I now have three bows.

I consider the body for a moment and then shrug and try placing it in my Inventory.

Huh. That works. And it granted me several Bones and a lot of Mystery Meat chunks. Well now I know to avoid anything called that in the future. That is so cool. My Inventory automatically processes bodies. That is going to be incredibly useful.

I quickly store the other body before leaving. Time to try out my bows.

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Sadly I can't actually start shooting sea gulls yet. But I wander off a bit and setup as I wait for the morning. I scatter about half the Mystery Meat along the isolated stretch of shore and start mining.

I already know there are several differences in how my powers work and the game mechanics functioned. The inclusion of real world physics and my powers is a bit odd. But I need every advantage I can get, so testing. Lots of testing.

My Inventory is made of 27 slots. Same as the game. My hotbar is 9 slots, again the same. The largest difference turns out to be what can fit in those slots.

The default storage is an item or a block. A block is as far as I can tell, exactly one cubic meter. I had already found that my powers will add to a substance to make it fit the slot. After testing I found I can store more than just that.

My powers work on a grid system. Turns out my Inventory sort of does too. I can prebuild sets of blocks, up to two per side, and store the result. I guess it explains the items that are larger than a meter. It also means that with a bit of work I can carry up to eight times as much of some items in my Inventory.

Finally morning arrived. By that point I had dug out quite a large underground area providing me with plenty of dirt and stone to use in my tests. I had quite a decent size complex and only one mishap.

Apparently everything still obeys the rules of physics. Digging out an enormous room underground without any supports caused it collapse. Really glad no one was there to see that. Also glad I didn't learn it while say cutting down a tree. That would have sucked. Instead I just got covered in dirt.

It took hours before the sea gulls arrived and I had to chase off several rats and fox in the meantime. Well, by chase off I mean shoot full of arrows. They took their time but it was definitely worth it.

It took less than five minutes to run through all of my arrows. After collecting everything though I was fairly satisfied. Rats it seems are too small to be processed and just vanished when I tried to store it. The fox gave me a pelt and a chunk of meat. I guess it was too small to have decent sized bones.

The sea gulls are everything I hoped for. Each one when processed dropped around twenty feathers. Like the the fox, they also dropped meat but not bone. I ended up with way too many feathers. Trying to bundle them hilariously gave me a recipe for a feather duster.

It did turn out to be useful though, using up six feathers per along with a stick. Although the stick wasn't recoverable, thankfully all the feathers were. So now I'm carrying several dozen feather dusters.

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I have a theory now about my experience bar. It doesn't actually say experience and I don't think it actually represents that. Not that it really represented that in the game. Just like with the priests of R'hllor, I think I'm storing life force.

To test my theory I wander over to a butcher shop. I sit quietly off to the side and watch my energy bar, as I've decided to call it, slowly start filling up. It's nice, but much too slow to really be useful. Now if I can make it onto a fishing boat.

Chasing an idea I followed my nose. The smell was atrocious, but it was worth it. With metal being fairly common, bones weren't something that were really used. But Lorath regularly brought in large animals like whales to render down. They also regularly hunt both walrus and seals.

I had already noticed how there wasn't any imported meat. But what did they do with all the useless bones? They discarded them all in a single dumping ground. I was looking at a small mountain of bones. Enough to grow food for a small country.

I still have several hours to kill before it's dark enough to return. I wander around the docks, looking for a small piece of obsidian I can use. Surely with how often they trade for it they would be some? Nope, so such luck.

I keep an eye out on the merchant who robbed me though. Turns out he actually lives in one of the larger compounds. It takes some time but I finally locate a nice spot. Tomorrow I'll come back for him.

I thoroughly loot the bone pit. I set up a Crafting Table and start converting it directly to bone meal and then bone blocks and then sets of bone blocks. It doesn't help. I have three stacks of sets of bone blocks when I stop and I probably took less than a third of the pile.

I really need a name for the set of blocks. Maybe cube? Crate? Screw it, I'm going to call it a pallet. So three stacks of bone pallets. Eh, it works well enough.

Now it's time to deal with the thieving merchant.

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Back in the spot I picked out I take stock of my supplies. Thanks to the discovery of pallets I now have plenty of space in my inventory. Looking everything over I definitely need more food. Or at least I need to set up a source of food soon. Another distraction.

I almost miss the merchant leaving. He's accompanied by eight guards. None of them look up. Pathetic. Not that they would see me. I'm tiny and squashed into a tiny alcove.

My shot is perfect. Right through the throat. No saving him now. Hmm. None of the guards have bows either. Screw it. I fire again taking down the guard trying to drag the merchant away. I aim for his back, intending to dissuade him. I even fire without even pulling it fully back. It still punches deep into him. Through his armor.

Good armor really is rare in this society. I keep forgetting about that. That and how easy it is to kill someone. Too late now. Oh and look, they see me. Oops, some do have bow. I shoot both of them before jumping down.

There is a guard under me trying to climb the stall. I summon a sword and leave it buried in his skull. I take off. I can hear the rest of the guards giving chase. Wonder if it's only because they can see I'm unarmed?

I had prepped an abandoned house just for this instance. I run through the open door and into the hallway. I leap twice over the blocks I had placed and then duck under the last block placed at chest height for an adult. I slide to a halt and pull out my bow.

I can hear the guards swearing as they climb over the blocks. I place myself below the hole I cut in the roof and build a pillar underneath me to reach it. I run back over the roof to the entrance. Only one guard is there, probably standing guard.

I step off the roof, this time pulling out a pair of knives. Heh. I actually managed to halt my fall when I stabbed him. I start shooting before the rest of the guards realize I'm there. One. Two. Thr.. Damn, missed. The last guard ducks behind one of my blocks. I can see him looking around and realizing I had left no escape.

He screams and tries to charge. I almost feel sorry for him. Especially when he trips over the blocks on the ground. And done. Not bad.

I'm kind of surprised there isn't a crowd gawking at the ambush site. I guess people here have a better sense of self preservation. I quickly stuff all the bodies in my Inventory.

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As I munch in roast sea gull I watch the incoming ships. I've been watching them for a week now trying to figure out a way to steal some obsidian. It isn't looking well.

I know they trade for obsidian from the rpg. So far the general information has been accurate. The problem was they don't seem to keep any of it. It's all barter direct shipping. Stowing away seems like way too much trouble.

Hmm. Those aren't merchants leaving the ship. Decent armor, Westerosi accent, is it that time again? Holy crap. That's the Mountain. What's he doing here?

I shadow them, just another street urchin easily ignored. I overhear snatches of conversation. Among them are the words demon child.

Wow.

Really? They actually spread that around? Way to be a douche Viserys.

So over twenty knights and soldiers plus the Mountain. Maybe it's hubris, but I think I can take them. Just need to set up an appropriate ambush site. They'll probably check my old house. Looks like I have a plan.

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It's just before dawn when they arrive. I watch with glee as they rushed the door and lawn collapsed. I went with simple and direct. A pit trap, almost twenty feet across and twice that deep. I only get a few of them, but the surprise was the point.

I fire. And watch in disbelief as the arrow shatters on Gregor's helmet. He really is a mountain. Damn. I fire at a few others, but they're all using cover and shields now.

They don't rush the house. They take out some flasks and throw them at the walls. I stagger at the explosions. I notice the walls are burning with green flames. Great. Wildfire. Well I'm out of here.

I duck into the escape tunnel I had dug earlier. Even if they find it and then follow it doesn't matter. It looks like it's time to relocate.