CH2: Rampage

The crowd was tense. The greatest King of all, Joffrey Baratheon, gave the order to cement himself as a powerful ruler. "Off with his head, I want to be crowned in a fortnight." He had done it and declared his power for all to see. Little Finger smirked at him, sharing this moment when King Joffrey, First of his name, pounced upon the Wolf and ripped the wretch's throat out.

His bitch of a betrothed screamed, and Joffrey felt a tingle down below. The crowd cheered for the Hand's blood, and Joffrey would give it to them. Yes, they were cheering for him, the great King Joffrey.

His poor, dumb, woman-brained mother thought he took Stark to the Great Sept of Balor to show him mercy and the dominance of the seven. No, not. He brought the Stark traitor to the Sept to show the people he was greater than the gods.

Joffrey the Great smiled in triumph.

Suddenly, the world was upside down, right side up, and upside down again. He heard someone whistling. His head was turned to see Sir Illyne Pain struggling to swing the Valyrian Sword Ice as if he had hit a solid force with it or the Mountain himself had grasped the knight's hands. The edges of his vision turned black, and he thought no more. 

…

Blood splashed his face in the few seconds between the moment he exited the door in the alley and the warning from his deal blared. He focused on the once-white steps of the Sept yellowed from decades of people pissing on them. The acrid smell of the city was more of a blow to him than anything the world could offer.

He put up a barrier and cycled air through it. Smelling the roses wasn't something he could do in the city of King's Landing, after all.

After so long isolation in his shop, it felt great to move. Killing the boy had come easy. Joffrey was an evil little prick with far too much pride for someone so incompetent. Red held his hand up and squeezed when he saw the slow-changing face of the little Finger.

His gesture was strictly theatre. Who would know it was him who killed these fools if he didn't make an expression before things happened?

The man had a heartbeat before his body flattened into wet meat and gristle. Red had rung what he could from the man's mind before Petyr Baelish's psyche self-destructed and scattered. The psionic barely focused on the crowd or the people as he began assigning partitions. He had a singular hour to loot what he could without damaging his potential for repeat business.

The High Septon, guilty of numerous acts of child molestation and rape, barely opened his mouth before his body exploded in gore. Red had a range of a little under 5 miles when he pushed himself. He went to work singling out rapists, murderers, and pedophiles and wiped them out by crushing their hearts. Of course, 50 well-honed partitions went to work sorting through the memories of thousands.

Westeros wasn't his world; he felt he was earning tons of positive karma with little effort.

He pointed a finger at the queen."Gold Cloa," Cersei Lannister's head spun around like a Beyblade, her lengthy hair whipped before her spine flew out of her stump. Blood gushed out with it as the body compacted like an empty Pepsi can. He could make real money once he fully accessed the world of Harry Potter from this little adventure. While ripe with raw resources, this world wasn't worth purchasing.

Even if he bought it as a private home, it wouldn't be worth it.

Sir Sandor Clegane raised his sword, his eyes wide, and his nerves shot as he witnessed things he couldn't explain. His eyes saw what happened to two Lannisters and the Master of Coin.

"Joffrey Baratheon was an unacceptable King. I suggest you carefully consider who is fit to rule the realm." Red decided to fuck with the people. He turned his head to the side and nodded his head. "According to the Gods old and new, Jon Snow is the rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms. Kings Guard, you are far from being in charge. I suggest you leave immediately, pick up your brother Jamie, and continue to the wall where you will find your King. He added a little compulsion for the fun of it, careful not to pop their psyches like he had Little Finger.

He took hold of ice and handed it to Eddard Stark. "You should try and keep your nephew's kingdom together until his Kingsguard collects him." Red patted the man on the shoulder and winked at him.

"Who are you? Did the gods send you?"

"Ask your youngest if you must know the answer."

He floated off the ground with a bit of telekinesis and flew to Little Finger's whore house, where he kept the gold.

Red burst through the ground, ripping away stone and masonry, and he arrived behind all the traps and guards in the vault. He opened the door to his shop, poured the gold inside, and watched his SP tick up.

He had around 55 minutes left. Red flew high in the sky before he flew at incredible speeds east. After he got what he needed, he supposed he could handle the ice zombies in the North. He landed first in Pentos after reading a Bravosi sailor's mind for directions and then landed in the Illerio's estate. He plucked the location of the Dothraki and the Targerion royals from the man's mind. There were still 50 minutes left after travel time, and he was sure he could snag the dragon eggs. Well before his hour was up.

This wasn't a speed run, but he didn't see a need to interact with anyone when he didn't have to. He floated over the Kalisar and raised a hand. The dragon eggs flew out of a tent, with one silver blond clutching one as it flew toward him. Her extremely pregnant belly was concerning, so he pried her hands off the egg and gently returned her to the Diet Mongols.

48 minutes left.

Red went west and crossed back into Westeros before shooting North.

He wasn't unbeatable or more powerful than anyone else could be. It was only a difference between a psionic's potential and the potential of mortal humans. Unlike in a world like Harry Potter or Helluva Boss, he had no threats he needed to worry about besides maybe the gods.

Forty minutes left.

He stood upon the wall and looked out from the wall. Maybe he had overestimated some distances. Red shot toward the Oldest Weirwood and landed gracefully at its trunk. The cold wind danced around his barrier, leaving him untouched by the chill. His image, an auxiliary technique used by psionics, mages, and cultivators as a theme to revolve power around, appeared beside him. Animation was a technique he liked to employ on special occasions like these.

This was the tree of knowledge, and symbolism was important. Red smirked as the earth singers, or forest children as they were often called, watched him warily.

"What are you here for outsider?"

"A fruit of knowledge ripened and ready to be plucked. It has sat fat on its branch for too long as wind and rain blow upon it. I have come to pick the fruit and consume it." Repeating the lore of an image strengthened it, but that wasn't the only way to raise the tier of an image. While repeats will show some progress on an image. Rhyming events can be even more fruitful.

"Do you know what will happen to you? No human can remain themselves when the three-eyed raven crawls into them. He will hollow even you out and wear your skin."

Red laughed at their words, saying they were genuinely ignorant. Rhymes weren't repeats of the same word. Songs that repeated themselves quickly grew stale.

Lucifer appeared beside him. The earth singers stared at the light, bringer in terror and awe at its majestic 12 golden wings.

"You came here to become the next possessor of all human knowledge." The hope in the creature's eyes was adorable. He turned to face his image.

It spoke with light flares, but Red could translate the words he had puppeted. "The Lord my god has asked that I obey man as if they were god. Surely I can not eat the fruit of man he said it was forbidden. If I did, I would surely be cast into eternal darkness. I will lose my connection to the light."

"Did he not tell you that you were the light destined to wield the darkness? He planned this so that you could eat the fruit and take all of human knowledge. You will be cast into the darkness, but your light will never be lost. You will light, temper, and wield the darkness. By eating the fruit, you will become as great as god." Red said.

"What are you talking about? What is that apparition?" The image's hand lashed out and gripped the man's skull. He pulled, and a blackbird pulled free from the old man's head. The bird cried once before light transformed it into a black cherry. His image took a bite, becoming a devil with 12 blackened wings and a flaming halo wrapped around a black hole.

The old man didn't die, and his eyes went vacant. From what Red could tell, the three-eyed raven was a primitive image created by an ancient green seer.

Under the man, he found the valerian steel sword, dark sister. He opened a door to his shop and tossed it in.

30 minutes left.

His image had grown in power, and that was for sure. But before he went ahead and wiped out the white walkers, he stopped himself. Red was a good guy, but perhaps he was going beyond the scope of his deal. Doing too much without gain wasn't his idea of a good time.

The three-eyed crow was a problem that went unrecognized, so he wouldn't get paid for solving it anyway. So, he used it in a minor ritual. He connected more deeply with his image by tempting the devil in a poorly written play that rhymed with the original sin tale. So what do you do with his last 30 minutes?

Red stepped out from the burrow within the tree around all the green seer earth singers trapped in the roots and decided fuck the tree.

He raised his hand, and it shifted ominously. What was he going to do? That was simple: he would turn this heart tree into timber.

A line appeared through the tree trunk from an impossibly sharp wind blade.

Heart tree wood was supposed to be magical. He found from his inspections that the tree was not important. The true secret behind Green Sight was the fungus living in symbiosis with the tree. It was very effective at storing information. The wood itself was a good hardwood with mind and memory symbolism.

It would make a great material for crafting equipment for himself. Unfortunately, his customers weren't psionics, so this kind of trip might not happen again. He did learn that the wood could grow nearly infinitely if he watered it with blood. The infinite wood hack was still going strong, it seemed.

…

Arya Stark stared at the bearded man as he walked back in through the only door of his shop with a swagger to his step. She relaxed as he returned to his counter and sat heavily in his seat before putting his boots up. Fortunately, he seemed too happy with himself to notice her trick in his absence.

"You know I can see the dragon eggs in your shirt."

"I don't know what you're talking about." A force pulled the dragon eggs free of her person and placed them back on the shelves. "I was only joking."

"If you had tried to leave my shop with them, you would have owed me a debt."

"That wasn't in the rules."

The man, Red, nodded. "They are not listed. Your father is okay, by the way, and so is your sister. There is nothing you need to worry about now." The man smiled with shiny white teeth, which Arya didn't like at all.

…

Madness, Eddard Stark had thought his injury had caused him to lose his mind, only everything he witnessed finally was real. Moments before he was to be executed, the demon arrived. It struck Joffrey and the queen, several gold cloaks, small folk, and septons and septas alike. Worse was the declaration that his son was his nephew and the rightful king. Worse still, the kingsguard believed the being. Then, a door opened, attached to nothing, and his daughter stepped out safe and soundless without a scratch.

She stepped onto Little Finger's remains, and the sight around her suddenly dawned on her. He saw it the moment she realized what had happened. He expected her to scream. She started giggling.

…

It was close. Red barely paid Arya much attention. If he hadn't glanced at her chest, she might have gotten away with two of his three freshly stolen dragon eggs. He had no defenses from theft; he hadn't purchased any yet.

"Shop, how much do you put those who steal from me in debt for the items they've stolen with interest?"

500,000,000SP

 That was out of his price range.

"How much to put those who steal from me in debt for the value of the items they've stolen without interest?"

500SP

He was having trouble focusing on his book because his shop was unprotected. Reading was one of the few pleasures he had in prison. Sure, he expanded the walls quite a bit, added more shelves and glass cases, and even had an upstairs bedroom. He was only out 50,000SP, leaving him with 1,850,000SP. He was only waiting for more options before he decided to purchase permanent entry into a world.

On the bright side, he loved to point out his new ability to walk into different rooms while he was stir-crazy and pacing.

He turned his page and returned to thinking about customers stealing from his shop and how to exploit them for infinite SP.

Compounding interest was too much of a leap. Thieves couldn't necessarily pay back the debts they owed. Were there any ways for him to gain any benefits? "Can thieves steal enough merchandise for their collective debt to increase enough to enter a world?"

No

He hadn't had high hopes for that avenue. It sounded like the system wouldn't let him turn his shop into what amounted to an insurance scam organization. The ROB didn't want there to be an easy way for him to get ahead.

He was really lucky Arya Stark was a child and of high standing. Not just anyone could assign him contracts to rob important figures and organizations. Since her father was the hand of the king, she had some wiggle room with the shop. The butcher's boy, for instance, couldn't ask for him to steal something that would cover his entry.

Also, if he can't fulfill the task, he will eat the cost of entering the world. If the debt becomes outstanding, he must make merchandise and sell it to the shop for a loss until his debts are paid.

In other words, he was lucky.

His door opened, and a boy stepped in. Red went ahead and purchased the anti-theft device for 500. There were some advantages to being owed money. For instance, if a debtor entered his shop, many of the protections they enjoyed would vanish.

"Shop owner, are those eggs."

"Dragon eggs," The boy's eyes widened before narrowing. "I heard that only the King has possession of dragon eggs." 

Red pointed to the three eggs. "Five million ounces of gold each. Another million ounces for the instructions to hatch them. If you want to be able to control the dragons, then that's another 10 million ounces of gold." Red turned to the next page in his book.

It was 100,000SP for the basic Control Dragon Skill and Red planned to sell it for 1000 times the price.

"Dragon's shouldn't be controlled they have as much right to freedom as anyone." The words sounded especially preachy.

"I think you're confusing the Wyvern class dragons with true dragons. But that is an interesting opinion to have. Are you fucking one?" Red asked.

The boy didn't look especially wealthy, or he would have leaped at the opportunity to purchase the dragon eggs and save them from slavery.

"What are you," The boy stuttered out.

"Oh, well, congratulations. I hope the two of you are very happy together. Don't invite me to the wedding, and I don't want to see your mutant children." Red said.

"We aren't getting married."

"Really, you shouldn't live in sin. I'm sure if you get a member of your local religion nice and drunk, they'll marry you to a goat. A dragon shouldn't be a hard sell if the feelings are reciprocated."

"No, we,"

"Ah, you're forcing yourself on her. Let me ask you, have you known this dragon since she was hatched? And kept her company until this point."

"What are you implying," The boy's face turned red.

"Don't worry, many priests don't care about age, much less consent. Your dreams of fucking a giant lizard remain viable."

He looked up to see the boy clutching his head and staring at Red in rage. "I can't sense my partner." The boy gripped the pommel of his sword and slowly unsheathed it. "Are you a spy for the king?" Red stared at the ironically red blade. Perhaps his entertainment went a little too far.