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Chapter 11

Pushing through the rumble blocking his path in the middle of what had once been a road through the city, Jon paused for a moment to catch his breath. As he did so, he stared upwards at the imposing structure before him. While the curved walls were not particularly tall nor in the greatest of shape, for Jon, in this moment, he might as well have been staring at the Wall itself for how imposing the structure was to him. 'Finally,' he sighed in relief. 'The breeding grounds of the ancient Valyrian Dragons. The place of my Trials to become a Sith like Master Nox.'

Taking a few calming breaths, Jon started towards the breeding grounds while running the instructions Master Nox had given him before the two had left the Vault and gone their separate ways. 'To the east near the outskirts of the city proper, you will find a building that looks like a coliseum. According to the Archon, this was a hatchery that held the dragon eggs when it became time to bind the hatchlings to their riders. That time has long since passed. But there are still artifacts and talismans and perhaps even tomes, if we're lucky, that will prove useful in the fight to come. Trust in the Force, and you will find what will help us. But be wary. For there were protections, protections created by the Force users of Old Valyria. And I sense that those protections are still very much active and capable of ending your life if you are foolish.'

Arriving at the entrance, which had been completely closed off due to rubble and years of disuse, Jon closed his eyes and reached out with the Force, trying to find something, anything, that resonated. But try as he might, there was nothing. Just the cold feel of stone. 'Come on,' he thought, tightening his eyes as he delved deeper and deeper into the structure through the Force. 'Give me something…anything.'

Just as he started to feel that this was nothing but another false trail laid out by Lord Nox, he felt it. The slightest of a resonance on the edge of his senses that he nearly overlooked. Concentrating, he focused solely and only on the slight resonance. It was faint. So faint that it was as if he were trying to spot a minnow in a murky river at night. But it was still there. And the longer he focused in on the resonance, the clearer it became. But instead of just breaking his concentration and running into the structure, as he was tempted to do, he held himself in check. Instead, he continued to focus on the resonance and the immediate area surrounding it as his Master had hammered into himself and his trueborn siblings time and time again.

'Rushing into an unknown situation or location will only get you killed.' He remembered Master Nox lecturing them as they all sat before the weirwood in Winterfell's godswood. 'Before heading into any situation, even if it is life or death, take a moment to analyze everything you can with all your senses and through the Force. A moment's preparation could mean the difference between survival and death. Both for yourselves and your loved ones.'

After feeling that he'd mapped out the immediate area around the resonance as best he could, Jon pulled his senses back into himself and opened his eyes once more. 'Well, I have an idea of where I need to get too… Now the question is: just how do I get there?'

The front of the building, indeed most of the building, was in ruins with no clear passageways leading to the outside. But by visually scanning the outside, he found another way in. It was a single opening, whether intentional or not, on the second level of the structure. Keeping his eyes on his target, he channeled the Force into his body, focusing it into his legs to strengthen the muscles as he'd done so many times before that it was now almost second nature. Bending at the knees, he pushed mightily off the ground with the aid of the Force strengthening him. The calm air rushed by in a gust of wind as he flew up to the small opening on the second level, landing just barely inside the small hole and throwing his weight forward to make sure he didn't fall backwards. 'Alright, that's step one,' he thought, frowning as he investigated the darkened room he'd entered. Thankfully, a combination of the roof mostly missing, and the dim light of the sky made it so that he didn't need a torch. But who knew how long that luck would last him.

Keeping the slight resonance he'd felt at the forefront of his mind, Jon made his way through the darkened ruined halls. His eyes were continuously moving as he searched for any sign of structural damage or potential threats. During one of Master Nox's many lectures, he'd briefly touched on his experiences exploring abandoned or ancient ruins, a topic that had never failed to keep his sister Arya thoroughly enraptured. And it was those lessons and the dangers that such places often held that Jon was putting to use now as he began to make his way through it.

He was only within the ruins for a few minutes before he came across his first obstacle. A hole in the ground that stretched the length of several men and went from wall to wall. Kneeling at the edge, he carefully examined the edges of the hole, looking for a way to possibly go around. 'Looks deep.' He frowned, picking up a rock and letting it drop, waiting to hear the echo in order to gauge just how far down it went. 'Very deep. I might be able to jump it, especially with no roof overhead. But the question is if the other side can support my weight when I come down? Is it even worth the risk? From what I can sense, the resonance is down in that direction…but do I drop down or continue on this path?'

Deciding that he really didn't have the time to just stand around and argue with himself, Jon steeled himself for a moment before stepping off the edge and down into the hole. Using the Force to slow his fall, Jon bent at the knees the moment he felt his feet touch solid ground to cushion the blow. 'Huh, that wasn't that far of a fall actually,' he thought, looking skywards. 'Strange. It looked so dark from up there. But now that I'm down here…it's not that bad. In fact, I can see better down here in the dark than I could from up there. Like this corridor is filled with the light of the full moon. Strange…very strange.'

Despite the oddity of the light where there shouldn't be any, there was something else tugging at the back of Jon's mind. A nagging sensation that something just…wasn't right. It wasn't that much of a feeling, not much more than slight unease in his gut, but it was persistent. And it only started once he dropped down the hole.

'I don't have time to worry about it,' he thought, steeling himself as he forced himself to put one foot in front of the other down the hall. 'Master Nox says we can't stay here for long lest his protections wear off. And I, for one, do not want to become some mindless beast attacking everyone.'

As he walked, he gradually became aware of carvings on the walls surrounding him. Carvings that had somehow managed to survive the test of time and the Doom of Valyria. 'Strange,' he thought, pausing to examine one such carving, which showed a man or woman standing before what he could only assume was a dragon with their arm held towards the massive beast. The carving itself wasn't necessarily strange, the Valyrian's were known as the 'Dragon Lords' after all. No, what was strange was the almost emphasis that was put onto some object that was on the person's arm. 'What could that be?'

Looking back in the direction he came from, Jon found himself dumbfounded. 'Wait, I came down a straight corridor…That turn wasn't there just a moment ago!' He found himself less than a few paces from a sharp corner that he swore wasn't there just a moment before. Leaving the carvings, he started to make his way back, only to find that he didn't recognize anything. The corridors weren't the same as the one he'd pass through after dropping down the hole. The carvings on the wall were different and the twist turns that he suddenly found himself constantly encountering were not there before.

'Not good…Not good,' he thought, starting to become panicked as the thoughts of being stuck down in this place started to crawl through his head. 'No, stop thinking like that! If I get lost, Master Nox will…No…I can't rely on him to save me. This is my trial. This is something I have to do myself!'

Stopping, he took several deep breaths to try and calm his racing heart. 'Breathe, just breathe. Feel the Force. The Force will grant me victory…and through victory, my chains will be broken.'

The strange resonance he'd felt before coming down here flared up once more, stronger than before. 'It's close,' he thought, opening his eyes. 'Very close. Just a little bit further an – What is that noise?'

Turning at the sound of something that sounded like tapping on the ground, Jon had just a moment of warning from the Force to duck as something passed over his head close enough that the wind of its passing brushed through his hair. Scrambling back, he found himself face to face with…something. Something shaped like a man but cloaked completely in black cloth that even covered its face, and which also stood a full head and shoulders above him.

'Gods! Is that…a man?' he thought as he scrambled back further as he began to recognize the object that the being held in its grasp and had apparently swung at him. 'Fuck! That's a sword!'

Drawing his own short sword, Jon clashed with the unknown man. Their blades locked momentarily before the cloaked figure hissed and pushed him a surprising distance away. Keeping his feet under him, Jon brought his sword up into mid guard Lord Nox had shown him with the tip of the short sword pointed up towards the ceiling. Of the seven sword forms Lord Nox had forced him to practice time and time again, Jon had found himself most drawn to the second and seventh form styles, Makashi and Juyo. He found that quite enjoyed Juyo the most, he loved the feeling he got when he immersed himself in the fight, especially when he was able to beat his opponents soundly. But he also loved Makashi, specifically the strategy that was required with the form. And against such a large foe and in such tight corridors, he knew that Makashi was his best bet now.

Waiting until his opponent struck, Jon quickly shifted his feet to his left to sidestep the downward swing before using his sword to deflect the blow towards the ground and using the recoil to help quicken his backstroke towards his larger foe. Jon expected the man to dodge or move or something. But what happened was not what Jon expected. The man did not move. Instead he caught the edge of Jon's sword in his bare hand.

'What?!That's – Oh shit!' Jon cursed as he had to let go of his sword in order to dodge the larger man's backswing which threatened to cut him in two.

Now without a weapon, Jon did the only thing he could in this situation. Setting his feet firmly, he threw his hands out and lashed out with the Force as hard as he could. The man, or whatever he was, was clearly not expecting the attack as it was flung back into the darkness behind him, dropping Jon's sword as he did. Picking up his sword, Jon prepared himself for another attack from the shadows. But nothing came. The man that attacked him had…disappeared into the darkness. He couldn't even sense him through the Force either.

"What the hell?" he muttered out loud, keeping his guard up as he slowly backed away from where the larger man had disappeared, waiting for him to reappear and resume his attack.

'Fuck, I don't have time for this,' he thought. He quickly scanned the area once more with both his eyes and the Force but found nothing. 'I can't go chasing after him now. Just have to keep going forward.'

Keeping his guard up and his senses stretched, Jon turned his back on where the man had disappeared and took off at a light run towards the resonance he'd been chasing. Almost without warning, Jon turned a corner and suddenly found himself within a large room that was perhaps half as large as the great hall within Winterfell. And if the fact that he suddenly found himself in the room wasn't odd enough, there was also the fact that the room was as bright as the city outside the breeding grounds. But where the light was coming from, he had no idea. The ceiling was intact, there were no windows and no torches lit. But he could see perfectly fine.

Scanning the room, he noticed that it was devoid of, well anything. The only apparent decorations in the hall were a dozen or so statues of men and weapon that were standing in the center of the room facing one another. All of which were still fully intact. "Alright," he muttered, slowly entering the room as he sensed the strange resonance coming from the far side. "As if things couldn't get any stranger."

Walking into the room, he made his way between the statues while constantly keeping his eyes open and his sense outstretched. The moment he walked between the statues he suddenly doubled over as it felt like something invisible struck him in the gut. 'The resonance!' he breathed, straightening and looking around. 'It's here!'

Looking around widely, he tried to find whatever had drawn him here, but failed to spot anything of note. That was until he made a second turn and noticed a slight flickering of light on the arms of one of the statues. Stopping midturn, Jon walked over to the statue. And on the statue's arm was a golden bracer the length of a man's fist adorned with large red jewel the size of a man's thumb in the center. 'Whatever the hell that thing is, that is definitely where the resonance is coming from,' he thought as he reached out to grab the armlet off the statue.

Just before his fingers could touch the armlet, he heard something behind him. A slight hiss followed by the sound of leather rubbing against stone. A feeling of dread filled him as he turned around…and found himself nearly face to snot with the largest snake he had ever seen in his entire life! The damn thing was nearly as thick as Jon's torso. It had also reared upwards and poised backwards slightly so, to Jon, that it seemed even bigger than it already was. But what truly made Jon nearly piss himself was the snake's hide. It had a faint orange glow…something he had only seen once before in his entire life. And that was just after they passed by the oversized sea turtle that was at the mouth of the river when they'd first departed the Sea Wolf.

"Fuck!" Jon screamed, jumping to the side behind one of the other statues. He was just in time to dodge the firewyrm's head as it struck, smashing the statue with the armlet into a cloud of debris and dust.

"Shit! Shit! Shit! Not good!" Jon yelled, running behind yet another statue as the snake recoiled and reared itself up again.

The glowing orange of its hide brightened up considerably mere moments before its jaw opened, and Jon could see the flames swelling within the back of the beast throat. "Fuck!" He cried, running away once again, only this time with the flames of the firewyrm right behind him instead of the snake's head. "How the fuck am I supposed to fight this thing?"

Using the Force to lift a larger piece of the statue that'd been destroyed, Jon flung it as hard as he could at the snake, hitting the beast upside the head. The snake hissed loudly, an angry sound that chilled Jon to his bones despite the residual heat of the flames nearby, as the firewyrm coiled in on itself briefly before lunging for him once more.

"I think that only pissed it off!" Jon yelled to himself as he tried to think of something – anything! – that he could use against the beast.

But as he moved to hide behind another statue, he saw something. A flutter of something in the darkness that soon emerged from the shadows and charged the firewyrm. "That's…That's the same man who attacked me in the hall!" he breathed, watching completely dumbfoundedly as the man who'd tried to kill him not moments before completely ignored him as it charged the firewyrm with its sword held high.

The firewrym seemed to completely forget about Jon as it turned its attention to the large man charging at it. Opening its jaw, the serpent sent out another wave of fire, which seemed to do absolutely nothing to the seeming man as he completely ignored the fire and slashed at the underside of the snake with his sword.

Peeking around his hiding place, Jon watched transfixed as the man went toe-to-toe against the firewyrm, dodging the snake's lunges and seemingly to be completely unbothered by its flames. As he watched, he noticed something. The destroyed statue was not far from where Jon presently was and that the golden armlet was still intact. 'Not going to get a better chance than this,' Jon thought, deciding to risk it while the two creatures that'd just tried to kill him fought one another.

Dashing out from his hiding place, Jon slide across the ground feet first through the gravel and shrapnel of the destroyed statue, grabbing the armlet as he passed it. The moment he laid his hand on the armlet, he knew exactly what its purpose was. It allowed the wearer to control fire, as long as the wearer had magic, or the Force. How he knew that he didn't know, all he knew was that he knew it to be a fact. Slapping the armlet onto his arm like it had been formerly worn by the statue and securing it, Jon sprung to his feet, ready to face the firewyrm and the dark cloaked figure. But the two seemed to still be completely ignoring him as they continued to fight one another.

'Okay, this is going too well,' Jon thought, as he slowly inched back away from the two. 'As long as they're fighting one another, I can make a break for it and get the hell out of here!'

But just as he was about to make his break, he saw the firewyrm lunge out once more, only this time the dark cloaked figure wasn't able to dodge in time. The result was the snake being able to tear his sword arm clear off. The cloaked man immediately fell to his knees, clutching at the bloody stump that had once been his arm. The firewyrm rose to a height twice as tall as the man, its glow brightened again as its mouth opened and flames welling up in the back of its throat as it prepared to roast the man alive.

'Firewyrms do not kill their prey, not right off.' The words of Prince Oberyn fluttered back to him as he watched the scene before him. 'They'll burn their prey, but they won't kill them. At least that is what little evidence we have says. No one has really studied them, considering how dangerous they are. But it is believed that they'll roast their prey slightly and then implant them with their larvae or hatchlings. And then the prey becomes a host. A host which is slowly roasted alive from the inside until the larvae grow large enough to consume their host. It's a fate I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy… Well, maybe one or two. But it is definitely one of the worst ways one could ever possibly imagine dying from.'

The cloaked man may have just tried to kill him, but Jon couldn't just leave him to suffer such a fate. If he did, he would never be able to face his father or siblings ever again, or call himself a Stark, even if he was just a bastard. "Fuck," Jon cursed out loud, holding out his arm with the armlet. "You better not attack me again after this!"

The fire of the firewyrm shot out of the snake's mouth and descended upon the helpless man. But just before it could reach him, the jewel on the armlet glowed brightly and the flames stopped and instead of roasting the man alive started billowing upwards and around the intended victim as if hitting a brick wall. After just a split second of this, they suddenly seemed to warp back on themselves and back towards the snake.

One of the many exercises Master Nox had forced Jon and the others to undergo was making fire dance. It was a nearly impossible task, and one that couldn't be maintained for long. Holding onto the fire and manipulating it was like trying to hold onto a freshly-caught slime covered fish that was the size of your arm. And that was just with a candle's flame. But now, with the armlet's augmentation, Jon could control the fire with such ease that it honestly felt like cheating.

The snake hissed in pain as its own flames attacked it. As the snake thrashed about, Jon let go of the flames and charged forward with a cry, his sword held high as he readied himself to cut the firewyrm's head off.

But the moment Jon's sword was about to contact the snakes hide, something happened. There was no resistance. In fact, there was nothing. It was like Jon's sword was cutting through mist as it passed uselessly through the air and struck the ground where the snake had been.

Catching himself, Jon readied for whatever counter the firewyrm was about to launch, but there was nothing. The room was…empty. No giant snake. No cloaked man. No flames. No destroyed statues. Nothing. The only thing that remained was the amulet on his arm.

"What in all the hells was that?" he muttered still not understanding or believing that all of that had just happened.

But just as he was beginning to question his sanity once more, he felt another resonance from the Force. Unlike the previous resonance with the armlet, this one was almost like a physical pull so strong that nearly took him off his feet. And in the center of the room he found a box, roughly the size of a man's head just…sitting there. A slight white glow coming from underneath the lid.

Not entirely sure just what was going, or even sure that the box was even there, Jon cautiously approached the box and used the tip of his sword to open the lid. Within the box he found the source of the light. It was a small white jewel the size of a man's thumb that seemed to glow with the light of sun somehow contained within it. A jewel that was practically calling out to him through the Force. But that wasn't the only thing in the box. Resting underneath the jewel was a large, scaled black stone with light grey stripes running around the numerous scales' edges.

'No,' he thought, kneeling and inspecting the contents of the box. 'Not a stone…An egg. A dragon egg.'

Deep within the darkness of a ritual chamber buried within the Fourteen Flames, two figures performed a dance of death as old as time, circling one another with blades unlike any other. Nox's blood-red lightsaber illuminated the surrounding area, the only light source available to see within the chamber as the blade spun around in quick movements. Its counterpart, a Valyrian steel blade, and its wielder, the false-sorcerer god 'Balerion', did everything in their power to keep up with the sorcerer. The hall leading to the surface echoed with the hissing and clashing of their blades as the two moved steadily down the corridor towards the outside world. Exactly where Nox wanted the false god.

Ducking beneath a wild swing and placing his left hand on the ground, Nox spun on his hand in a move that would make any dancer green with envy as his feet left the ground, only to plant themselves in the chest of the would-be god before following up with an upswing that cut the creature from hip to collarbone diagonally across it's body. But as had happened countless times before, the mortal wound closed almost immediately after being inflicted. Though, Nox noticed the regeneration seemed a touch slower than it had been when the fight began. Before he could fully regenerate, Nox let loose a barrage of Force lightning, flinging the would-be god across the slight expanse left in the corridor and out into the land of Valyria.

"You…are…infuriating!" The false god shouted, his power flaring in response to his temper. "Why won't you die already!?"

Again, the fool was basically telegraphing his attacks as his anger and ego overrode any common sense. So, it was but a trifle matter for Nox to swat the attack aside once again. An attack which was little more than a barely solidified bout of dark side energy that obliterated a nearby rock formation.

"Many better than you have tried," he remarked idly, slowly spinning his lightsaber in his right hand as he waited for the false god to provide him an opening once again. "They have all fallen to my power and blade. And you shall be no different."

The false god sneered at him for a solid minute before its features morphed from one of frustration to one of confidence. "Ah, I see… That is your weakness!"

Raising a brow over his sightless eyes, Nox tilted his head. "Okay, this ought to be good. What is my weakness?"

"Your feelings!" the false god laughed. "You feel a sense of comradery for those you brought with you, yes… I have been watching you ever since you and those you brought with you entered my domain. Because of that comradery, you've overextended yourself and your power from trying to protect them from my influence for days. Yes, your weakness is that you can be distracted by them! And with the protections around Valyria that those foolish Archons put in place with their last breaths now weakened…how easily it will be to influence some of them to attack the others! Yes…I will do just that! Many were already set to betray you and it will be nothing to give them just the right push in that direction to accelerate the process. With all that treasure you have found, it will be easy to sway their hearts and minds! They will attack the others and kill them! And what will you do then? Rush to defend them? Or continue our fight here? Haha, yes! Your weakness is your care for those you brought with you! And now, it shall be your downfall!"

Lowering his lightsaber, Nox fixed the false god with a sightless glare.

"You truly are an idiot, you know that?" he asked, shaking his head and chuckling, much to the bafflement of the false god. "I already know that there are those that are planning on betraying me within my expedition force. You see, I made sure that the force I brought with me was composed of all of those who were willing to betray me as well as a counterbalancing force that would be able to handle them easily. So, go ahead: influence those traitors into making their move. Have them make the moves I have already predicted and already have countermeasures against. You see, I knew that I needed a decent sized force to reach Valyria. But I don't need the same size of a force to leave. You will actually be doing me a favor by exposing the traitors and helping me clean house before leaving these shores. You will find that those who are vital for my long-term plans or those who are not traitors are shielded such that you will find no purchase in their minds."

The false god faltered, then sneered as it gathered its resolve. "You think you're so smart. Don't you, slave?"

"Yes," Nox responded with a shrug. "I won't pretend I'm the smartest man in existence, but I am, at the very least, smarter than you."

"Insolent slave!" the false god screamed, fire springing to life along the length of his blade. "Perhaps you have accounted for potential traitors in your midst, but your paltry minions will not stand against my army which will soon descend upon them!"

"You mean the roughly three-dozen stonemen that are making their way towards Valyria from the northwest over that way?" he asked, waving his hand towards the north. "Yeah, we were already prepared for stonemen as well. We were heading into Valyria after all, and the Smoking Sea is known to have a colony of stonemen that have chosen to exile themselves there. So, not really a surprise that there would be some in the area. Honestly, I was more surprised that there were not any stonemen that'd laid claim to the city. But again, your taunts are meaningless. Those that I brought with me are prepared to fight your infectious 'army'. And I have the means to mitigate any damage after the fight as well. So, nice try."

He could feel the fury coming from the false god, his emotions such that the dark side itself was reacting. Forming small wisps of miasma around the being's form as it stood fuming before Nox. "You! Are! Nothing! Slave!"

"Wrong," Nox countered, leveling his lightsaber at the being. "I was a slave. But then I was thrown to the darkness and left to die. But in the darkness, I learned. I learned peace is a lie and there is only passion. Through passion, I gained strength. Through strength, I gained power. Through power, I gained victory. And through victory, my chains were broken. The Force set me free. And with this code, I became something far more than you could ever comprehend."

"Pathetic drivel that means nothing! Fitting that one such as you would spout it!" Balerion cried, holding his sword up high. "Let me show you the true meaning of power!"

Holding his lightsaber before him, Nox braced himself for the attack while gathering the energy to create a Force Barrier between himself the false god. The buildup of Force energy from the fake deity was immense and sudden. But as quickly as it came, it went…with no adverse effects to Nox at all. "Rise! Rise, my companion of old! It is time to unleash your fire once more! Time to feast on flesh once more! Rise! Rise and smite those who dare to challenge the God of Valyria!"

Frowning, Nox followed the path of the Force energy that'd been unleashed. He found it settling on a pile of rocks along the edge of the volcano. A pile of rocks that began shifting and rising, dust and loose ash falling to the ground as a large shape began to pull itself up and out of the place it'd been buried for so long. Nox only stared with a blank expression as he observed how the Force was being twisted and warped into recreating a deceased artificial life.

"Have you prepared for this, slave?!" the false god laughed as the last rocks fell away, revealing a winged creature the size of several troop transports rising from its grave. "My companion! My dragon! The mount of Balerion! Fly forth once more and lay waste to those who dare desecrate our sacred city of Valyria!"

There was little Nox could do but marvel as the undead dragon spread its wings, which somehow managed to retain their webbing despite centuries of being buried beneath the ground and took the sky. Its path was clear as, with a few powerful beats of its massive wings, it headed straight for Valyria, giving off an earth-shaking roar as it passed the two of them by. "Well, slave. Did you plan for my dragon as well?"

"No," he answered plainly. "Honestly, encountering an undead dragon being raised and sent to attack those under my protection was perhaps one of the last things I expected to see when I was planning this voyage."

"Haha, so the slave is not all-knowing," the false god laughed. "So, what will you do now? Without those you came with, you cannot hope to defeat me, nor can you ever leave this place. You. Are. Mine!"

"You should've had the beast attack me instead of sending it after my expedition force," Nox continued on calmly, observing the undead beast through the Force as it struggled to stay in the air with its tattered wings.

Disappearing, the false god reappeared almost within arm's reach of him, his Valyrian steel blade aiming to remove his head. "The damage will be the same." The false god laughed as Nox almost lazily leaned back and let the blade pass uselessly through the air. "Already your moves are sluggish. Your attention is divided! This fight is—!"

Twisting, Nox shifted to ataru, flipping over the head of the false god and cutting his head in half and landing behind him. "You talk too much." Nox murmured, shifting back to soresu and ignoring the dragon for now. "Victory is never assured until your enemy lays dead at your feet. And as for your dragon…I care not. My acolyte is more than capable of handling such a beast, especially now. And if he is not, then I have wasted my time training him."

Cracking his neck as his head reformed, the false god turned towards him. "And what gives you such confidence in that uncultured barbarian Westeros boy you call your acolyte?"

"Simple," Nox smirked. "Let us just say, that the Archons of your time were not wrong in their beliefs."

Standing on the edge of the stone pier overlooking their boats, Prince Oberyn idly cleaned the blood off his newly acquired spear as he watched the man he'd just killed bob in the water for a moment before the weight of the steel plate he'd been wearing beneath his tunic dragged him below the surface of the water. Turning aside, he saw the Mormont girl cleaning a man's brain off her mace while Asha retrieved one of her new throwing axes from the back of another man. Hearing a growl, Oberyn turned his attention to Small Jon Umber, who was returning from down the dock with Eddard Karstark and two other north men that'd stayed true to their cause.

"Fucking bastards disappeared into the damned wilds," Small Jon spat. "Couldn't even bloody my new sword….lucky bastards."

The mutiny, for that was exactly what they'd faced, had been poorly thought out and even more poorly executed. A group of ten sailors had apparently decided they wanted the treasure for themselves and had concocted a half-crazed scheme to take the women hostage before jumping on the boats and sailing off into the distance. Apparently, they'd thought that his daughter, the Mormont girl, and the Greyjoy would be easy for the taking. Or perhaps they thought that the Greyjoy would join them considering her family history. Stupid, but the plan did have an inkling of sense in that they at least waited until most of the men, with the exclusion of Oberyn himself, had left the docks to make one last run at the vault before making their move. Of course, their plan had gone tits up the moment they pulled their poorly hidden daggers and tried to grab hold of the women. His daughter had gelded the man who grabbed her before slitting his throat nearly to the bone. The Mormont girl had simply thrown her head back, breaking the nose of the one that tried to grab her before swinging around with her mace and braining the poor sod.

'Pathetic, stupid…ill conceived, and costly,' Oberyn thought as he observed the bodies littered across the ground. They'd started out with forty strong, eight men to a boat. They lost three on the trek up the river. Now, ten more had mutinied. Of the ten, six were dead and four had scattered to the wind. But before that, they managed to kill two others that'd stayed loyal to the expedition. Bringing their number down to thirty. 'Thankfully, they waited until the boats were mostly loaded before launching this hairbrained scheme of theirs.'

The looting of the vaults had not been an easy task, just as the sorcerer had predicted. The first problem had been locating anything that would be able to carry the valuables. Thankfully, there were lower levels within the palace and other homesteads in their immediate vicinity that were still moderately intact, and they were able to find the chests and crates to load the valuables. The second obstacle came to transport them out of the city. Despite the three losses on their voyage, they were still numbering fifty strong. And the boats simply couldn't hold much in the way of valuables and men and stay afloat. Which was why, if he'd been a pious man, he would've thanked the Seven and the Old Gods when one of the sailors stumbled upon a small building that had several small skiffs located inside. None of which by themselves were seaworthy. But with a bit of rearranging, they were able to tie two of the skiffs together and create a large enough raft that, while definitely not useable on the open sea, would be able to float down river easily enough and hopefully out to the Sea Wolf. And best of all, they had been able to load it with over a dozen extra chests of loot.

The last issue present came about exactly as the sorcerer had predicted. And that was with what to take. The smallfolk of the crew had wanted to take all the gold coins they could find, while the Lords wanted to horde as much Valyrian steel as they could hold. Even his own daughter was not immune as she had eyed several Valyrian weapons she wanted to bring. Surprisingly, only the Greyjoy and the Mormont had shown the slightest bit of foresight. Coins were good, as was Valyrian steel. But gold was heavy. And if you could learn the secrets of Valyria, particularly how to reproduce their steel, then they could easily recoup the loss of leaving behind most of the weapons. So, it was with no small amount of moaning and groaning that the expedition began filling the first several chests with scrolls and books. After filling five to the point where they could hold no more, he had them move on to the strange crystals that the sorcerer had been admiring, which had filled another three chests before he decided they had enough. And while Oberyn himself could not see any value in the things, as they were obviously crafted crystals from a forge, he had learnt to trust the sorcerer to a degree where if the man said they were valuable, he would take his word for it.

With the books, scrolls and crystals loaded, Oberyn then directed their attention to the Valyrian steel. While most of the blades were too big to be placed into chests, they were easy to load onto the skiff once they were rolled up in whatever cloth they could find. The last four chests that went onto the skiff were loaded with gold and jewels. As a compromise, Oberyn had agreed that each man present could find a satchel and load it with whatever they wanted from the Vault and keep it as payment for their services. He'd hoped that would've been enough to satisfy the men, but he should've known better. Greed was a powerful motivator, after all.

"They can't have gotten far," his daughter stated, a hard look in her eyes. "If you lumbering fools can't track them, give me five men and I'll track them down and end them."

"Let them go," Oberyn ordered, surprising his daughter and several others. "We've all seen what is out there. Those four won't last but a few hours. And neither would we if we pursued them. Best just to leave them to their fate and let the land itself take care of them."

His daughter, nor the Northmen, seemed particularly pleased with his orders, but as the sorcerer had made it known that in his absence Oberyn was in charge, they wisely kept their opinions to themselves. Walking slowly back towards the others, he made certain to keep a close eye on each of the fallen, just to make sure they didn't have any sleepers waiting to strike when his back was turned.

"Fucking fools," Dacey Mormont spat as he approached the young she-bear and the Greyjoy girl. "What the fuck were they thinking?"

"In short, they weren't," Oberyn sighed, not for the death of the men, but rather for the inconvenience it was creating. "Their greed blinded them to the cost. And now their short-sightedness is going to cost us more than it already has."

"Aye," Asha nodded, throwing the rag away that she'd been using to clean the blood off one of her axes. "We've lost a quarter of those we set out with. It will be difficult rowing back downstream, especially given what it took to get us here. And now we got the skiff to consider as well. We'll have the current to help take us downstream, but it won't be enough to offset what we've lost."

She was right. The voyage upriver had been anything but easy. All of them, himself included, were nearing the point of exhaustion, he could feel it in his very bones. The current downstream would help. But as Asha correctly pointed out, losing a quarter of their number meant they had a quarter fewer to row. Which meant they would either have risk rowing to the point of near exhaustion, or risk staying in this accursed land longer than necessary, or they could leave behind some of their loot. None of which sounded particularly appealing to Oberyn.

"Perhaps we should wake up the Lannister." Dacey muttered. "The lions might not have much in the way of honor and he might be half out of his mind, but at least he'd be one more pair of hands to man the oars."

The idea was not without merit, as much as he loathed to admit it. And, granted, Gerion was not his brother nor the Mountain. But still, the idea of having to rely on a Lannister for anything was not something he was willing to entertain. 'Nox has seemed to have had a counter plan for any potential issues that arose so far this voyage,' he thought, his eyes flickering to the boat where the Lannister man remained asleep. 'I wouldn't be surprised if he even suspected a potential mutiny before we left. Let's just hope he has plans for how to get all of us out of here in a timely manner.'

The shifting of rubble away from a wall brought all of them around, their weapons leveled and ready to fight. Only to hold themselves in check as Jon Snow appeared on the other side of the rubble and stopped dead, his hands held out in a nonthreatening manner while his eyes took in the scene with the several dead men scattered across the pier. "What in the name of the gods happened?"

"A slight dispute on the proper distribution of pay," Oberyn replied almost on reflex as he raised his spear. "A few of our number thought they were entitled to all of what we found and fully intended on leaving the rest of us behind. The rest of us had issue with that idea and, well, they lost the argument."

"Oh," the bastard of the Warden of the North replied elegantly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Alright, well, what do we do now?"

"Now?" Oberyn replied, hefting his spear over his shoulder. "Now, we wait for the sorcerer to return from whatever fight he's hogging all to himself. And then we figure out how to man our boats plus an extra skiff with less than a quarter of the manpower we started with. Either that, or we begin sorting what we have and start leaving things behind. Something that I'm sure no one wants to have happen."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the boy frown in thought before turning northwards and staring off into the distance. Oberyn considered himself a master of reading people, one had to be if you were to survive the games of nobles and the games in the fighting pits. In a fight, the slightest twitching of a hand or shifting of the eyes or even the shifting of one's weight could tell the opposition exactly what their next move would be. And in the game of the nobles, one's eyes or twitching or one of a hundred slight tells could give away a lie or the truth. So, when Oberyn saw the bastard of the North go stone still as he faced the north when he was relaxed but a moment before, a hundred warning bells started sounding in his head.

Tightening his grip on his new spear, he moved to stand side by side with the boy. Jon's eyes were pointedly facing northwards and had an almost…detached look to them. As if he were seeing without seeing, if that even made sense. "Master Nox is still fighting…something dark. Something strong, but…wrong. So very wrong. It's as if the Force itself is rejecting the thing's very existence," Jon said almost emotionlessly as if he were describing the weather.

Looking at the boy out of the corner of his eye, he kept his attention northwards. "Is he winning?"

Jon shook his head. "I…I can't tell from this distance but… Wait. What – What is that?"

The sense of dread increased tenfold as he watched Jon turn whiter than the snow of his homeland. "What is what boy?"

Jon's answer came in a single word as his eyes grew large and went skywards. "Run!"

Not a moment later, an ear splitting, chest rumbling roar came from the sky, chilling the very blood in Oberyn's veins as he looked skywards. What he saw was impossible. Yet, it was there. Dropping from the clouds and flying low enough to scrap the tops of the buildings was the very creature that allowed the Targaryen's to conquer almost all of Westeros. A dragon. "Scatter! Now!" he yelled, running off to his left and, on instinct, grabbing Jon by the waist and putting himself between the dragon's path and the young boy.

The heat was the worst. Even though Oberyn was well clear of the dragon's path, he could still feel the heat of the dragon fire down to his very bones as the beast of legend passed them by, scorching everything in its path. Which included two more of their number who were too awestruck to move. The only saving grace he could think of was that the flames of the dragon killed the two hapless sailors so quickly that they didn't even have time to scream nor, he hoped, to truly feel the pain of the fire turning them to little more than piles of ash.

"Someone better tell me I'm fucking sleeping on a pile of gold back in the fucking vault!" the young Umber yelled. "Because there is no damn way that a dragon just passed us by and tried to fucking cook us!"

"This isn't a fucking dream, Umber! It's a fucking nightmare! And one we're all sharing!" a second voice, the Karstark boy he believed, shouted back.

"We need to get into the buildings!" Dacey Mormont shouted. Her mace held tightly in her hands as her gaze remained skywards. "The thing can't burn us if it can't find us!"

"No!" Oberyn blinked, the voice hadn't come from him, but rather from the young bastard boy he'd been protecting, who'd suddenly shrugged him off and marched out into the open. "Dragonfire can melt stone, even this stone here in Valyria. We go in between the buildings or in them, and that dragon will turn them into ovens. And we can't stay here, if one of those flames hits the boats, we lose our only way of getting out of here in any timely manner."

He was reasonably impressed with the boy's logic. Between the buildings would give them the option to hide, but it would limit their mobility and if the dragon hit them with a burst of fire, those stone homes would turn into ovens to cook them alive. Out in the open had its risks, but it was the better option. But regardless of out in the open or into the city, they had to get away from the boats to prevent the dragon from targeting them. Hopefully.

"Listen to Snow! Get your asses towards the outskirts of the city or I'll kill you myself and save the dragon the trouble!" he shouted, motioning with his spear in the direction they were to go before turning and speaking quietly to Jon, "I hope whatever task the sorcerer sent you on, boy, gave you some kind of trick to deal with the dragon."

"I just might have a 'trick up my sleeve', Prince Oberyn!" Jon Snow shouted as the two ran towards the outskirts of the city.

The movement was brief, but out of the corner of his eye Oberyn noticed Jon touching the sleeve of his tunic on his right arm. 'I see, he meant that quite literally. I'm interested to see just what the sorcerer sent him after.' "Careful with that cavalier attitude, boy! I might just start taking a real liking to you! And, if not me, then Ellaria certainly will. She likes witty young men af-"

"Shut the fuck up!" Asha shouted from just ahead of the two of them. "Think with your cock later, Prince! Dragon first! Fucking after!"

Despite the situation, Oberyn felt his face split in a smile under his mask as he stared at the Greyjoy woman's backside. "Is that an offer, Lady Asha?"

"Here it comes! Scatter!"

At Snow's warning, everyone scattered off to their left or right, taking whatever cover they could find. 'Shit,' Oberyn cursed, tucking himself behind a building's corner just as he could hear the dragon's roar and the beating of the beast's wings. 'We're not out in the open yet! That thing lets loose a blast like last time, and we're all cooked!'

Just as he could start making out the form of the dragon through the mist, he noticed something that had slipped his attention when he ducked for cover. And that was the fact that Jon Snow was no longer beside him. In fact, that boy was standing out in the middle of the street, staring down the dragon that was on a direct path for him. 'Fucking fool!' Obery cursed, ready to burst out from his hiding place and tackle the boy out of the path of the dragon. 'I don't fancy taking a swim in these waters, but if I go fast enough I should have enough to take the both of us into the water and – Whatis he doing?'

Any action he was about to take halted as he watched Jon casually raise his arm. This action allowed his right sleeve to roll back and revealed some sort of golden armlet on the boy's right forearm with a ruby gem in the center. A gem that started glowing brightly just as the dragon's maw opened and flames leapt forth, consuming the boy and everything around him.

Ducking back, Oberyn closed his eyes. 'Fuck…I got distracted! I couldn't save the boy! Damn it! What was he fucking thin—' His thoughts were cut off as a torrent of wind rustled his clothes. The flames from the dragon weren't dissipating. If anything, they were gathering, right above where Jon had been standing.

The Prince of Dorne had seen and experienced a lot in his life, more than almost any could ever hope to see or experience. But the sight of the Bastard of Winterfell, standing amongst a raging vortex of flames with his hand held above his head, his face twisted into one of great concentration? That was something else. Something new, even for him. With a yell rivaling any war cry he'd ever head, Jon turned, the vortex of flame following his movements as if a slave to his will. The flames formed into a ball and, launched like it was a stone out of a trebuchet right into the back end of the dragon. The beast of legend gave of a cry as it flailed in the air before crashing through several buildings.

After picking his jaw up off the ground, Oberyn was the first to react. Eyes bouncing continuously between the downed dragon and the boy, he slowly and cautiously approached the Bastard of Winterfell. "Alright, I'll bite. What in the Seven Hells did the sorcerer send you after that allowed you to do…that?"

"It's this talisman," Snow answered, his face looking more than slightly drained, but his eyes remaining in the direction where the dragon had fallen. "I'm not sure how, but it almost…enhances my Force powers to manipulate fire. But only fire. Master Nox never spoke of anything like it before."

"Well, that's convenient," Dacey Mormont remarked, her mace at the ready as she took kept her eyes in the direction of the fallen dragon. "But please tell me you weren't dumb enough to use that thing on a dragon without knowing it would work."

"Well, I wasn't sure that it would work that well against dragonfire," the boy said before hastily adding. "But I did use it to kill a firewyrm with its own fire. At least I think I did. So, I just assumed that it would work as well against a dragon."

The ease with which he said drew many up short, no doubt as they remembered their first and only encounter with one of the most dangerous creatures in perhaps the entirety of the known world, now that dragons were extinct… Well, maybe not completely extinct seeing as they were now facing one. But as Oberyn drew close enough to touch the boy, he had to reassess his original thoughts on him looking drained. Drained would be an understatement. He looked as if he'd just sprinted from Sun Spear to the Water Gardens during midday. 'Not surprising. While I might not know about this brand of magic the sorcerer and the boy use, there has always been one rule that all magic abides by. It's taxing. Those two have been using their magic nonstop for days to guide us and keep us safe. And Jon, by his own admission, has already finished fighting off firewyrm and now he just used his power to deflect dragon fire. A feat thought to be impossible!'

"The boy has given us a chance," Oberyn called out, forcing himself out of his thoughts and back to the matter at hand. "He's brought the dragon to the ground, which gives us a chance to kill it."

"Wait, you want us to go on foot and hunt that fucking thing?" The Karstark lad all but shouted. "Did you see how fucking big that monster was!?"

"Yes," he nodded. "And while it is in the air, that big fucker will be impossible to kill without a heavy scorpion or ballista. So, our best – our only – chance to survive this is to try and kill it once it's on the ground where we can reach it."

"But how are we supposed to kill it?" Umber growled. "We might hate those dragon fuckers, but we know of them well enough. Their skin is tougher than heavy plate armor. Not to mention, you ever try and hunt a bear? You corner them and they get ten-times as vicious, which this beast now is. And not to mention, you need to drive your spear damn far into the bear in order to kill it. How the fuck are we supposed to get in close enough to not only stab it, but I doubt even our new Valyrian steel weapons will be able to get past those scales."

"Master Nox's lightsaber," Jon spoke up, stopping the retort that was on the tip of Oberyn's tongue. "A lightsaber can cut through anything. I've seen him cut through steel, wood, even solid stone with little to no difficulty. If there is a weapon that can kill a dragon, it is that. Master Nox is far away but, I can sense he's returning."

"Then that's what we'll do," Oberyn decided, ending the discussion. "Snow will use his…magic to nullify the dragon fire. The rest of us will keep it occupied and once we get it to ground, we try and kill it. And if all else fails, we hold it off long enough for the sorcerer to get back and have him finish the job with—"

"Something's coming out of the mist!"

Turning, Oberyn squinted off into the distance of the mist clouding wall that was just barely visible that had once served to contain the city of Valyria. At first, he couldn't see anything through the mist. But that didn't last as he soon saw figures shaped oddly like men limping through the fog. Mishappen men with skin the color and texture of the very stone walls that surrounded them. And as if to truly make their situation any worse, he could hear the distinctive beating of heavy wings and the roaring of the dragon as it once again took to the sky.

"Fuck me," he muttered. "Just what we needed right now. Fucking stonemen."

The reaction from everyone was about what he'd expected as everyone, from noble to laymen and from man to woman, took a step back in fear and disgust. Grabbing the sleeves of his tunic and making sure they were fully covering his arms; he popped his collar up and then took a two-handed grip on his spear as he stepped forward. "Form lines! We fight in groups of ten to give others the chance to rest. Make sure every piece of exposed skin you have is covered in something before you step forward to fight."

No one moved to join him. No one save the one who couldn't as Snow proved to have the biggest set of balls as he rearranged his sleeves and drew the short Valyrian sword Nox had given him from the vault. "Not you, boy," he said, holding out his spear and blocking the boy's path. "You're the only one who can deal with that fucking dragon when it comes back around. The rest of us will keep the stonemen from reaching you."

The boy looked like he was about to protest, but a distant roar from the dragon still in the sky must've brought the situation they were now in around to the boy. And with little more than a nod, he moved back as his daughter, Asha Greyjoy, Dacey Mormont and the Small Jon all stepped forward with weapons held at the ready.

"Well, it appears you women have bigger balls than most," he smiled under his mask as the stonemen started picking up speed towards them as they advanced. "Let's just hope you are as skilled."

Lashing out with a high-spinning hook kick, Nox felt the attack find purchase against the face of the false-god, stunning the being as his Force-empowered limb sent him stumbling back. Capitalizing on the opening, Nox used a Force push to send the stumbling Balerion reeling head over heels down a small ravine. Reaching back, he grabbed hold of a boulder, easily lifting the nearly one-ton object over his head and sending it down the ravine. The false god had just barely managed to right itself in time to see the boulder approaching, and by then it was far too late to do anything but take the attack head on. Which resulted in the boulder passing almost effortlessly through him as it turned his body into a bloody red paste, forcing Balerion to once again expend the energy to create a new one rather than just repairing the old.

Knowing he had a moment, Nox let his sense of awareness expand. 'Almost there. Just a small distance further and this will end.'

Feeling a disturbance, Nox ducked in time for Balerion's sword to pass over his head. Switching to form four, Nox twisted and turned his body, becoming the very weapon he wielded as he danced and parried around Balerion's desperate attacks.