Chapter 23: Valyria

The stop in Lys had taken less than an hour, and within that time Will had robbed over a dozen merchants and nobles.

The flesh peddlers that sold women were everywhere, and there didn't seem to be a sign of any of it slowing down.

Most of the women even seemed genuinely happy with their positions, which Will figured was the result of knowing nothing but pleasuring people since they were children.

He had heard the stories about Lys, and he honestly was quite appalled. They were basically brainwashing women since infancy to want nothing more than to pleasure a man, and would teach her everything she would ever need to know.

'I might have to kill a bunch of people when I revisit this place in the future...' Will thought darkly.

Finding a raven had been easier than he thought, as they were quite advertised around the harbor.

Will sent the message off to Dorne, then was back on his ship before anyone could realize he had robbed them.

The half dozen ships missing from the harbor might be noticed before anything else, but by the time they were it wouldn't matter. Will would already be long gone by that point.

"Did you really need to take those ships?" Rhaenys asked with a tone of exasperation.

"What does it matter to you who I steal from?" Will asked, not bothering to answer her question right away.

"Because it makes you seem like some common thief! These people could be starving without those ships!" Rhaenys exclaimed, and Will couldn't help the cruel chuckle that escaped his lips.

"Each of the ships I stole was marked with the sigil from the pleasure houses. As in the people who train and sell women as sex slaves. They won't be running out of wealth anytime soon, but they will be executing the people who transport their 'merchandise' for losing their ships. I'll be back for their heads later, but for now I just can't." Will explained, getting a simple 'Oh' in response from Rhaenys.

She apparently hadn't thought there was a reason behind his actions, but now that she did she felt a little bad for having accused him of stealing from the common folk.

Little did she know that was just an excuse. He would have taken those ships regardless of who owned them, it just helped that they did belong to one of the disgusting pigs of Lys.

He never expressly said that was the reason he took the ships, but he didn't feel the need to clarify that. He was a greedy hoarding fuck, and he didn't need someone telling him how wrong it was.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it, they didn't run into anyone on their trip to Valyria.

For days they sailed without anything of interest happening, not even a thunderstorm to liven things up. When the Smoking Sea came into view, Will let out a low whistle of amazement.

In the show when Tyrion and Jorah came through here, it didn't look too bad, but it was far more different.

He could make out the outline of rock formations and mountains, but the smoke was more dense than he thought it would be.

Thinking about the show, everyone was terrified to come here, and it wasn't just because of the stonemen.

'Stonemen?' Will thought, remembering the people who had lost their minds and were sent to live here to live out their days. 'Oh fuck...' He thought, having completely forgotten about them until just now.

Turning to the Targaryen children who were looking over the railing towards the rising smoke, Will spoke, "Inside the Smoking Sea and the ruins of Valyria, there are Stonemen. People infected with a deadly disease known as Greyscale. If they touch you, you will be affected and will slowly turn to stone as you lose your mind. Stay close to me at all times, and do exactly as I say!"

That seemed to scare Daenerys, but it only excited Rhaenys and Aegon. The two adventure hungry kids were worse than adrenaline junkies.

"Your magic should protect you from the heat, but I don't know how your lungs will handle the smoke, so if it gets hard to breathe then let me know immediately." Will said as he moved the ship into the ocean of smoke.

Thankfully it didn't seem like the smoke had much effect on them, and even Will found it quite easy to deal with.

He kept magic sense active the whole time, choosing to not let anything in this creepy fucking place get the drop on him.

They had only been sailing inside the smoke for a little over 20 minutes when Rhaenys spotted the first sign of movement, quite a ways off and further out than Will's magic sense could go, but it just went to confirm that they weren't alone here.

The heat was also reaching very high temperatures, and normal people would have been sweating their asses off, yet this group of unnatural beings handled it just fine.

The three Targaryen's had their fire/heat immunity magic thing going on, while Will was never really affected by the temperatures. He figured it was due to his magic, but then again he couldn't be sure considering how he got to this world and who sent him.

He just didn't give a shit.

Will armed everyone with crossbows, then told them to shoot on sight. "From what I've read about Greyscale, it would be doing them a service to kill them." Will advised, wondering how Elia would feel about letting her children kill monsters that were once human.

*Thwing!*

Will fired a bolt from his crossbow, hitting a Stoneman that was running towards them just up ahead of their position.

The arrow struck it's mark, piercing straight into the head of the Stoneman. Will reloaded, keeping a watchful eye on the surroundings, wondering how many more of these things he was going to have to kill.

The answer, a lot!

After that first one, they seemed to come out in small groups, and within the first hour Will had killed 39 of them, and they had yet to make land.

Going around bends and under crumbling bridges, Will wasn't really expecting to see anything all that interesting, but this would only be the first of many surprises today.

Rounding the bend, Will saw the ruins of a few ships along the coast, like they had washed up on shore.

One of the things that surprised him however was the fact that one of the many ships looked like it was fairly new, and not just that, but it had the sigil of a lion on it.

'A Lannister?' Will thought, wondering which Lannister would be stupid enough to come to Valyria. Pulling up on shore next to the other ships, Will and the others disembarked, although the others made sure to stick close to Will.

The first thing they did was check out the ships, not finding anything of value. On the Lannister ship, Will did find some scattered pages in what he assumed was the captain's room, and despite most of the words being illegible, he could make out a name written on more than one of the pages.

'Gerion Lannister... Who the fuck are you?' Will thought, curious as to who he could be, as there was no mention of such a character from the series, at least not that he could recall.

From the pages, he did find out that whoever this Gerion guy was, he had sailed here about a year or two ago, and that he was searching for something called, 'Brightroar', whatever the fuck that was.

With how damaged and torn the ships were, Will didn't even bother to store them in his inventory, however he did keep the pages from the Lannister ship.

As they walked, skeletons and human skulls decorated the surroundings, and Will could see how Daenerys moved closer towards him, only a foot away.

Aegon walked with an excited skip in his step with his crossbow pointed up in the air, while Rhaenys was at least smart enough to walk slowly with her crossbow pointed towards their surroundings.

They walked atop a small hill rise, and then they truly saw something that surprised them.

The outline of the ruined city could be seen above a cliff face, and Will could see how if they had continued sailing further along their path, they would have sailed right beneath it without ever knowing it was there.

They continued along through brush and trees, ascending piles of rubble and through caverns until they arrived at what Aegon thought was a battleground.

Human skeletons littered the ground, their armor rusted over from the years of being at the mercy of the elements.

"There must be over a thousand of them!" Aegon said in awe as he looked over the corpses and the ruins of the area.

"I wonder what killed them?" Rhaenys voiced, leaning down to pick up the pommel of a rusted dagger.

"Do you think they were Valyrians?" Daenerys asked, thinking maybe they had died thousands of years ago during the Doom.

"No, they were killed long after the Doom! The lava from the volcanoes would have destroyed them all long ago if that were the case." Will said, kicking aside a pile of bones to inspect what lay around it.

Whatever clothes these people were wearing had long since given way to the elements, and had scattered in the winds.

Leaning down, Will touched the ground as he sent a pulse of magic to see what was around them, and upon seeing the area, he quickly stomped his foot down hard, raising a pillar of stone high into the air with him and the others on it.

"What's happening?!!" Rhaenys shouted as she fell to her knees from the quick ascension.

She wasn't quite ready for such a thing, and neither were the other two as they had fallen rather quickly themselves.

"We're surrounded, and I don't particularly like their numbers!" Will said as he walked over to the side of the pillar and looked down.

From their height, they could make out a great deal of the surroundings around them through the smoke, and the hundred or so figures moving to encircle them.

"I'm growing to hate these things more than the undead!" Will growled out as he tossed a jar of Wildfire down to the ground, then lit the tip of his crossbow bolt before firing at the deadly green liquid.

With that one shot, almost 20 stonemen disappeared, their bodies completely disappearing. Unlike the undead, the stone men at least were smart enough to know when to retreat. Well, some of them anyway.

Most of the stone men ran off after the explosion, but 9 of them stuck around. Will used earth magic to try and break them apart, but the name 'stone men' wasn't quite literal.

They weren't turned into stone, just something hard enough that they were given the name. It still didn't stop him from taking off pieces of the pillar he was on and launching them at the stone men, crushing them in a matter of minutes.

He checked they were dead, and confirming his thoughts, he brought the pillar back down to the ground.

"I want to go home!!" Daenerys whined, and Will was almost tempted to do it too, but Aegon was insistent that they explore for a little longer.

Near their previous position, they found something which could be considered a gateway or passageway leading into the city of what they guessed was Valyria.

They still saw bodies around the place, but the numbers were fewer and far between.

The ruins of the once great city were magnificent, and from them, Will was able to gain a few insights into how he wanted to build his own town someday, admiring the way some of these buildings were made to withstand the Doom and the elements for thousands of years.

While exploring, they managed to find the corpses of who they assumed to belong to Gerion Lannister and the people with him, though most of them were not equipped for battle, but rather than the garb of slaves.

It looked like they were running from something, and had holed up in one of the ruined buildings. Their corpses had rotted, but it was clear these people hadn't been dead for all that long.

Will wasn't quite sure, but it looked as though they had starved to death, and if the scattered limbs were anything to go by, he guessed they had resorted to cannibalism in the process.

It was when he was kicking through their ruined remains that he noticed something shining beneath a set of once finely crafted robes.

Kicking the corpse away, Will reached down and picked up the object, using what was left of the robe to wipe it off.

One of the finest swords Will had ever seen, and he couldn't help but marvel at the damn thing.

A Valyrian steel greatsword with a lion head pommel of pure gold. The decorated wrappings for the handle were worn away, but the sword still looked in mint condition.

The blade was five and a half feet tall, 3 inches wide, and as sharp as a razor. It wasn't nearly as heavy as it looked, but Will attributed that to being Valyrian steel.

'A Lannister, looking for something called Brightroar, Greatsword with Lion head pommel, lion is the Lannister sigil...' Will thought, coming to the conclusion that this sword was probably called Brightroar, and Gerion Lannister had died trying to find it.

'Oh well! His loss, my gain!' Will thought greedily, storing the beautiful looking blade away in his inventory. He could have the pommel changed later, but for now he would keep searching for anything cool.

Exploring the ruins of the city, they went from ruined structure to structure, Will using his Magic sense to try and find anything worth a damn beneath them.

Sadly, most places seemed to have nothing. However they did manage to find a few small gold trinkets here and there, and Rhaenys even managed to find a Valyrian steel bracelet, or at least what she assumed was a bracelet. It had weird decorations on it, but it looked cool nonetheless.

Using magic sense, Will was able to find small pieces of Valyrian steel, things he guessed were part of something else at one point, but now they were just scrap.

As they searched through the ruined city, Will stopped when he sensed movement coming from the places they had already checked, and after touching the earth, he couldn't help the groan that escaped his lips.

"I'm getting sick of these things!" Will shouted as he shooed everyone towards a stone bridge going up to a higher district in the city, and below it was a deep dark chasm.

Once they crossed the bridge, Will touched it, sending out a pulse of his magic to make the bridge float upwards, then launched it into the sky towards where he sensed the movement last.

There was a loud booming sound as a result of the bridge falling down, but with the roars off in the distance he was sure he got at least two of the damn things.

With the path to the rise now lost, Will figured they were somewhat in the clear. He doubted that was the only way to this level, but he hoped any other route would take long enough that the stone men didn't make it to them before they were done, which wouldn't be much longer considering how it was now Daenerys and Rhaenys who were getting sick of this place.

Whether it was from the lack of seeing or the looming threat of being turned into stone men, Will didn't know, but he didn't really care either.

Finding a Valyrian steel sword was already more than he expected when he came to this place, so he was happy with leaving whenever Aegon finally agreed.

However, that didn't seem like it was going to happen anytime soon, considering he was laughing and exploring like he didn't have a care in the world.

"Don't get complacent! I can't guarantee our safety forever! I'm not all powerful!" Will stated, admonishing Aegon who at least had the decency to look somewhat abashed.

Continuing on their way, they moved towards what was once a palace among the city, and it was huge! Most of it was lying on the ground, and the places still standing looked like they would fall over from the slightest breeze, yet it was still standing even after centuries in this condition.

Will kept any marble stone work, bricks and anything else which could possibly be used in the future, and it was only after taking a pile of stone that he found something which he had never seen before.

A rectangular box the size of a house had been buried under all the rubble, but the interesting part was that it looked like it was in pristine condition, minus a bit of dust of course.

Walking around the thing, Will found an oddly designed circular doorway, only it was sealed shut. There was a spot for a make-shift key of sorts, but what it looked like or how it worked was a mystery to him.

Touching the stuff, it didn't feel like earth, but it wasn't metal either. He couldn't bend it with magic, nor could he peer inside with magic sense. It was almost as if he was fighting another magic, similar to how it was when he tried to shape Valyrian steel.

"What is it?" Rhaenys asked curiously. "It's a magic vault... One even I can't open." Will said as he processed his findings.

His conclusion that however they forged Valyrian steel, magic was key, but it also wasn't limited to just Valyrian steel.

Whoever created the magic steel, they had somehow managed to imbue even whatever the fuck this thing was with magic as well, making it impervious to his own magic.

Reaching out, Will touched it, and he couldn't help but smile when the vault disappeared inside his inventory. 'Inventory for the win!! It's more of a cheat than magic!!' Will thought, doing a mental high five with himself.

It didn't matter that he couldn't get into the damn thing now, he would just try to get in at a later date and see if there were any goodies inside that he could make good use of.

Exploring the rest of the ruins, Will was disappointed that they hadn't found the key to the safe, but they did find a few other cool things.

A Valyrian steel jewelry box filled with 2 rings, a necklace, a bracelet, and 3 sets of earrings. Each of the pieces of jewelry were items fit for royalty, and he wondered how much he could sell them for.

Sadly he had spoken aloud, and Rhaenys had shielded them from him like they were her babies and he had threatened to eat them. She had made him swear an oath that he would not sell or trade them, and that when they got back to Dorne, she would take possession of them.

As well as the jewelry box, they had also found 2 Valyrian steel weapons, one sword and one spear, though anything apart of them that wasn't forged of the magical steel had been rusted or worn away, most likely from the extreme heat of this place combined with the elements.

The spear wasn't nearly as cool as his own spear, but it was still Valyrian steel, making whatever it looked like a moot point.

Other than that, the only thing worth mentioning would be a small silver rock-like thing Daenerys had picked up, but Will wasn't entirely sure what it was or if it was even valuable.

'Camp here, or go back to the ship?' Will thought, tiredly. His decision was made for him when they heard roaring approaching their position, scaring the daylights out of Daenerys.

She begged once again to go home, and this time Will couldn't really say no. Although he would have been more than happy to keep exploring the city, the stone men attacks were happening in greater numbers each time, and this was just one part of the city, which they hadn't even come close to exploring.

They were at this for almost the whole day, and if Will had to guess, they explored maybe 1-2% of this section of the city, and there were at least 5 other sections, 2 of which were much bigger than this place.

'I can always come back later by myself anyway.' Will thought, walking over towards the edge of the cliff face leading down to the ocean below.

Everyone gathered on the platform he created, and Will lowered them down to the ocean before he made the ship appear and they all boarded.

As he moved the ship through the Smoking Sea, splashing echoed all around them, though they couldn't see what the cause of it was due to the darkness creeping in.

However with Magic sense, Will was able to make out the stone men dropping from the cliffs above them and into the water, then begin to make their way towards the ship.

At first he questioned how stone men could swim, but then he remembered that they weren't actually made of stone.

Them jumping into the water was their biggest mistake, as that was entirely his domain, and it allowed him to rip them apart limb from limb without them ever being able to reach the surface.

A few of the stone men had gotten lucky in timing their jumps, almost landing perfectly on the ship. One even did, although instead of landing on it, he went right through it. Will had to bend the water away from the boat until they were in a somewhat open area before he could swap the ship out with a different one.

Rhaenys and Daenerys were terrified, and Aegon no longer looked excited to continue the adventure, but Will figured that was due to one of the stone men landing only a foot in front of him, going so far as to take a swipe at him, narrowly missing by a hair, which was a good thing too considering there was no cure for greyscale, and even Will wasn't sure he could heal it if he got infected.

It took over an hour of propelling the ship forward for them to finally reach the end of the Smoking Sea, the only bad part was that they were on the opposite side of Valyria from the direction they needed to go.

It would take another 2 days at most to sail around Valyria, and if Daenerys' and Rhaenys' expressions were anything to go by, they would rather sail for another week than go in there.

With the death scare, Aegon also asked to go around, wanting to put Valyria far behind him.

--------

Sailing back to Dorne was just as uneventful as the trip to Valyria had been, which everyone had been thankful for, even Will.

This was one of the reasons he preferred travelling alone, because it allowed him to not have to worry about anyone else.

But with Aegon and the others, his freedom to do as he pleased was put on hold, but he wouldn't have it be the same the next time he went back to explore the place.

'Oh the goodies I'll get!' He sang in his mind, his greediness knowing no limits.

When they reached the Watergardens, they were all greeted by the rest of the Martell family and Drox, who had a sort of smug smile on his face.

That smug smile faltered when Ellaria came and draped an arm around his neck, and based on his reaction, Will could make a pretty good guess that she had gotten past his resistance and most likely had sex with him.

"Anything interesting happen while we were gone?" Will asked, being the last to step off the ship.

"Captured a few spies! No big deal!" Drox said smugly, the reason for his smugness coming to light.

"Spies? Who sent them?" Will asked, wondering if Viserys had given away their secret. "Lannister's!" Oberyn said, sounding as though even saying the word was sickening to him.

'Tywin?! Why the hell would he ever want to spy on Dorne?' Will thought, knowing full well that Tywin had no interest in the Targaryen's, let alone Viserys.

Thinking of things Tywin would be interested in, it wasn't hard for Will to make an educated guess.

'Me!' Will thought, knowing Tywin would have done his homework on major threats to his house, and after taking over the Stepstones and allying himself with the Iron Bank, Will was certain to have gained the notice of the man.

Hell, even the Tyrells knew of him, and Will was sure that Tywin had many times more spies than they did.

"They most likely have been reporting on me. How many of them did you get, and have you got any information out of them besides who sent them?" Will asked curiously, and Oberyn couldn't help himself as the corner of his mouth curved upward into a sadistic smile.

"They held out as best they could, but with the right motivation they sang like little birds!" The man hailed as The Red Viper said, his eyes narrowing to amplify his cruel face.

'Most likely all dead then!' Will thought, not bothering to think about the terrible things Oberyn might have done to the poor fools. He probably would have done worse, but that was beside the point.

"They didn't get any information on Elia and the others, did they?" Will asked, staring intently at Oberyn. If they had, he would need to deal with Tywin sooner rather than later.

He couldn't risk a war just yet, and he wasn't ready to deal with assassins coming for Elia and the others just yet.

"Mostly reports about you, and about screaming coming from the castle for a few days. They did report how close you seemed to the new Lady Martell, but they didn't mention anything suspecting her or the children of being connected to the Targaryens! They're also dead. I might have used a little too much poison." Oberyn said, not looking one bit ashamed for having rid the world of Lannister spies.

"How'd you find them?" Will asked, curious as to how they could have noticed random people around the city. Ellaria was actually the one to answer that question.

"That was actually Drox! He was relentless in keeping watch over the palace while you were away! With his animals, he was able to find one of them within the first day, and after careful observation, he found half a dozen more."

The way Ellaria spoke about Drox While still keeping her arm around him, Will was sure they had fucked. 'Whatever. So long as he consented.' Will thought, brushing aside how close the two of them seemed.

Going back to the news he just heard, Will was quite glad he had left Drox behind. The boy was starting to show his worth, and Will was debating on taking him North when he built his town in the future.

"Good job! You'll have to tell me the story in detail later." Will said, giving Drox a rare nod of approval while at the same time praising him for his work.

The boy couldn't help but puff his chest out a little in pride, glad to have been at least somewhat useful to Will after everything he had done for him.

"So how was your trip out at sea? Did you see anything exciting?" Elia asked, smiling down at Aegon, expecting to hear tales of pirates and sea monsters. She however was not expecting the answer she got.

"WE WENT TO VALYRIA!!" Aegon shouted in excitement as he began to tell the story of their little adventure.

"We saw stone men!! Sailed the Smoking Sea! Explored the ruins, and found treasure!" Aegon added, making Elia's expression a little more grim.

"You Did WHAT?!!" She cried, looking at everyone, her eyes resting on Will.

"Don't worry mother! With our magic the heat and smoke didn't affect us at all. We made sure to test it before we went very far into the Smoking Sea." Rhaenys said, hoping to ease the worry of her mother.

No doubt the anger too, but she was more concerned about the worry. She hated seeing her mother worry, and after the recent events of being taken and beaten, she didn't expect her mother to take their trip into the ruins of Valyria very well.

"I could swear I mentioned we were going to Valyria in my letter!" Will said, putting a puzzled look on his face, but it wasn't enough to convince Elia.

"No, you didn't! You said you were taking a trip to explore some ruins and would be gone for maybe a fortnight!" Elia said, showing a rare bit of anger.

"Technically, I didn't lie." Will said, not meeting her eyes.

What followed was Elia scolding them all for being foolish enough to go to that damnable place, and she warned Will, that although he had powerful magic, he wasn't invincible.

She ended her rant by embracing them all, and they had the decency to look a little abashed. They still would have done it again, just made sure not to tell her where they went.

At least they felt a little bad for making her worry, which was something Elia could be happy about. Daenerys, being a bit younger than everyone else, felt the worst about Elia's scolding's, and when she was hugged she cried her little heart out.

Will took the words to heart, knowing full well he wasn't some all powerful being, but he wasn't about to take the easy road and not do anything he wanted to do because it might get himself killed.

He still wouldn't tell Elia that, knowing she only scolded them because she worried about them, as a mother often did.

Rather than dismiss her concerns, he was thankful for them, knowing they were just one of the many ways she told them all she loved them.

-------

Sitting around the room, Will and the others recounted tales of their adventures inside the Smoking Sea, even showing off the treasures they had found.

Will showed the Valyrian steel weapons, but he left out Brightroar. Knowing Oberyn, Will figured he would brag to the Lannister's about having it just so he could start up a conflict between them all.

Will had also kept the Vault hidden away in his inventory, but at least he told them about it.

The jewelry box he had wanted to sell was the most popular with Elia and Ellaria, both women marveling at the exquisite pieces, while also berating Will for even suggesting the idea of selling them.

Rhaenys had given Will a smug look when he was being admonished, but he brushed it off. The Valyrian steel spear caught Oberyn's eye, and he didn't bother to hide his interest.

"What do you intend to do with these weapons?" Oberyn asked, finally taking his eyes off the spear to look at Will.

Shrugging his shoulders, Will replied. "I haven't really figured that out yet. Maybe give them to Aegon and Rhaenys, maybe to Drox, I don't know!" Will said, not desiring any of the weapons they had found, save for Brightroar.

He didn't actually need any more Valyrian steel weapons, already having more than he could ever hope to use inside his inventory.

Brightroar itself wasn't actually anything special, it was just worth a fortune, especially to someone like Tywin!

"Could I have the spear?" Oberyn asked, looking quite serious compared to his usual personality. "Depends on them!" Will said, gesturing to Aegon and Rhaenys.

Seeing their uncle's desire for such a weapon, the brother-sister duo simply shrugged their shoulders, acting as if they weren't passing up a weapon wars would be fought over.

Seeing their dismissal over the weapon, Will shrugged his shoulders a second time. "Alright then! If you want it, all you have to do is promise to never try to sleep with me again and it's yours!" Will said, making Oberyn halt in his tracks.

"What?! Why is that part of the deal?!" The prince of Dorne asked in a tone of mock outrage.

"Because I'm not into men, and I'm tired of having you hit on me! If by some chance I miraculously get the urge to want to sleep with a man, you'll be the first person I call on, but until then, I'm purely into women!" Will stated, getting raised eyebrows from more than one person.

"You're into women?! Since when?!" Elia teased, finding it rather funny that Will would say that when he had never shown an interest in anyone else before, let alone a woman.

'God damn it!' Will thought, grumbling at seeing everyone smiling at him.

---------

(Tywin Lannister POV)

"This makes no sense..." Tywin said under his breath as he read over the last reports from Dorne.

Castian had returned from Highgarden, then almost immediately screaming echoed throughout the caste. It wasn't any of the Martell's, as the spies reported seeing them around the castle either during or after the screaming, and they all seemed completely fine.

Then a few days later when Castian set out to sea, all reports suddenly stopped coming. Tywin could understand maybe one or two of the scouts being found, but all of them?

He believed his scouts would hold out under torture for a little while, but there was a breaking point for every man, and he didn't think they would adhere to constant torture to not give up the information on who sent them.

Thankfully he simply instructed them to spy on Castian and nothing more, so if they did give up his name, he could play it off as keeping tabs on the largest threat in the known world.

If the information he had gathered thus far was anything to go by, he doubted Castian would attack him unless he did something stupid with the information.

With all of his scouts most likely dead, Tywin decided it best to no longer try to keep spying on Castian, lest he earn his wrath in the process.

'That simpleton in Highgarden survived, so it shouldn't be too hard.' Tywin thought, thinking of the oaf who was in charge of The Reach.

He knew it was most likely the man's mother, Olenna, but there was no way that egotistical pig hadn't tried to do something or said something that should have gotten himself killed, yet he was still breathing.

Tywin figured Castian had at least some mercy in him if he left Mace alive, or he had a sick sense of humor and wanted to see Mace get himself and the rest of his family killed. Honestly that seemed the more likely answer than Castian having mercy.

From his spies in Highgarden, Tywin figured out the nature of Will's visit with the Tyrells. Mending the bridge between the two great houses of Tyrell and Martell, while also acquiring a trade deal for potatoes.

It was apparently the main ingredient in a new drink Castian had developed personally, but Dorne simply didn't have the desired quantity he needed.

Neither did The Reach, and that made Tywin a little happy. Most lands could grow potatoes, it being one of the few things that could grow all over Westeros, even in harsh weather conditions.

Tywin had control over a great deal of land in Westeros, and most of it could be put to better use. He could kill two birds with one stone with this project.

First it would allow him to get on Castian's good side, if he had one, and it would give House Lannister a form of steady income.

The mines of Casterly Rock were already picked clean of any gold they might have held in the past, and there wasn't much to gain these days by keeping them.

There wasn't a guarantee of Castian agreeing to a trade deal with him, but he could always broach the topic with the man, and having the plans drawn up would be a start.

Looking over the map of the Westerlands, Tywin plotted out anywhere not in use that could be turned into fields for growing crops.

He had only just started mapping out the areas to the fields when there was a knock at his door.

"Enter!" He spoke plainly, allowing for whoever knocked to be allowed permission into his room. The door opened a second later, and in walked his brother Kevan.

"My Lord. I've received word from Varys. There is still no news of the Targaryen children. He believes them dead, but Robert is skeptical." Kevan said, reporting to Tywin like the ever faithful soldier.

If there was one person in the world Tywin trusted, it was Kevan. Unlike the rest of his idiot family, Kevan was smart, loyal, and never once did anything to shame the family. His loyalty was without question, and Tywin saw fit to confide most things to his brother.

"If they were dead, whoever did it would have brought their heads to Robert for a reward. No, they're still alive..." Tywin said firmly, not wavering in that belief.

Looking down at his notes, something seemed to click in his mind. Lost in his own mind, Tywin put pieces of a puzzle together, and after almost 2 minutes of not blinking, he looked up to his brother.

"Let Varys keep doing as Robert commands, but pull all Lannister spies to look into other matters. If I'm right, we don't want to find them!" Tywin said, truly wondering what Castian's end goal was.

Restoring the Targaryens, taking over the continent, erasing the great houses, it could have been anything for all Tywin knew.

The answer was so much more simple than all that, but it was one Tywin would never actually guess.

Will wanted to do whatever he damned well pleased without having to answer to any of the worthless bastards who thought they were his superior because they were told they were special.