"Aye, he’s the kind of man knows his way around every crack and crevice of these islands. So if it’s fortune and adventure you seek, then Captain Bart's your man. Only… don’t meddle in his private affairs. For there’s more mystery in that man than even I dare ask." Winter Is Coming!!
Two weeks after Barthogan and his knights left Talon, they reached the Valyrian peninsula, which extended into the Summer Sea. During the week long journey, Barthogan had met with all the remaining General grade and above in the shadow army.
'The two Marshalls Barret and Bertha, they have the same full body black armor that cover from head to toe. The difference between both of them is that, they are male and female, the other difference is that Barret uses war hammer as his primary weapon and daggers as his secondary weapon, Bertha uses battle axe as her primary weapon and similar to Barret she uses daggers as her secondary weapon. From the looks of it, majority knights of the shadow army uses daggers or short swords as their secondary weapons.
Next was the seven Generals of the shadow army, four of them were females, Corin a spear wielder with daggers as her secondary weapon, Diana wields sword and shield with whip as her secondary weapon, Elwira an archer with throwing daggers, Fallon a lance wielding knight with a long sword as her secondary weapon.
The three male generals were boisterous as they could come, Cormac the lance wilder, he uses short sword as his secondary weapon, Dante is a dual wielder of long sword, Ezekiel the crossbow wielder he uses short sword as his secondary weapon.
The difference between Grand Marshall, Marshall, General, Elite Knight and Knights are that they have stars on their shoulders. One star for the Knights, two star for the Elite Knights, three star for the Generals, four star for the Marshals and five star for the Grand Marshall. They are pretty similar to the military grades used back on Earth.
Even though Albern told me that I can have as many generals as I want, I cant convert all the Knights into Generals. For that I would have to do mass genocide after mass genocide to absorb enough death energy for them to convert.'
"My Lord! We are entering the Smoking Sea. Please equip your armor!" Bart was brought out his thoughts by the shouting of Barret who was navigating the ship for some time.
Nodding his head, he willed the shadow armor to appear and similar to his knights, his armor was also covering him from head to toe and the difference between his and the shadow knights were that his helmet was that of a wolf with a hood covering over it. Looking at his arm that is covered in pitch black armor, Bart mumbled to himself "Even though it's a shadow armor, it looks similar to a metallic armor."
"My Lord! Where shall we be landing?" Barret asked him.
"Where the most treasures are left, the capital of Valyrian Freehold, Valyria. It's a large island compared to others, so dock the ship near it." Giving out the order, Bart walked to the bow of the ship to observe as much as he could.
Within couple of hours, the ship docked at the largest island in the Valyrian peninsula, as Bart disembarked from the ship he odered "Bertha will be coming with me, along with Corin, Diana, Cormac, Dante and a five hundred knights. The rest will be guarding the ship, Albern will be in charge of the ship. Do not let anything enter the ship, no matter what they look like."
With that, Barth went to the depths of the Valyria along with five hundred knights divided into five groups. As they were nearing the periphery of the city, Bertha asked Bart "My Lord, why is this place in ruins?"
Thinking for a bit, Bart answered her "It is said that on the day of the Doom, every hill for five hundred miles exploded, filling the air with ash and smoke and fire, which killed even dragons. Earthquakes destroyed palaces, temples, and towns, while lakes boiled or turned to acid. The Fourteen Flames, the fiery mountains of Valyria, sent molten rock a thousand feet into the air, and red clouds rained down dragonglass. The cataclysm fragmented the Valyrian peninsula surrounding Valyria into numerous smaller islands and creating the Smoking Sea between them. The fourteen flames are likely volcanos, and those might have erupted at the same time."
"Then will we really find treasures in a place where the magma is overflowing?" Corin asked him.
"Mmmm... We may find some or we don't. I'm only going to look for a week. If even after a week we don't find anything then we will be departing to North." Bart said. Then looking ahead, Bart gave out orders "Corin and her centuria will search in the eastern direction, Cormac and his centuria will search in the western direction, Diana and her centuria will search in the northern direction, Dante and his centuria will search the southern direction. If you find anything, report to me immediately."
As per his orders, the four Generals scattered into their designated direction and started the search in an arch shape so that they could get faster results. When all the Generals were gone, Bart said "Bertha, we will be searching the central area. I will be in my stealth, so don't worry about me. Iform me if you find anything important."
Giving out the final order, Bart used his absolute stealth and started to enter the central area of Valyria. As he entered there, he saw lava rivers running across the land, dragonglass scattered everywhere, ruins in the distance and many more, seeing all these Bart said to himself "I'm pretty sure that this place have at least 800 C temperature, but I don't feel the heat even though I am standing near a lava river."
Letting go of his musings, Bart moved to the place where he saw ruin when he entered the central regions. As he walked towards the ruins, he saw small worm like creatures with eyes and nose coming out of the lava rivers and moving in the direction where Bertha and her centuria was located. Looking at those creatures, Bart muttered "Firewyrms. If Firewyrm babies are present here then the adult version might be nearby. I don't have to worry about me as I have absolute stealth and I don't have to worry about the shadow army as they are undying."
Shaking his head, Bart marched forward without stopping anymore and finally reached the ruins he saw from the distance. Getting inside the ruins, Bart started his search while turning over charred remains of woods or hardened molten metals. In his search he started to find some books, but they were all charred all over, because of that nothing was readable. Even though many of the things he found was covered in char, he stacked them together so that he could use them for something else.
As he was searching every nook and corner of the ruin, he found a trap door with metallic sheen on the ground. Knocking it with his hand, he confirmed that the door was made out of metal, smiling at the trap door, Bart said "An underground hideout or a storage area. Either way, there is bound to be something behind this door."
Taking out the great sword that was formed along with his armor from his backside, Bart slashed the metallic door two times in X shape, then he started to use his great sword as a saw and started to cut apart the door. When it opened, lights started to appear inside the underground and he saw stairs.
Climbing down the stairs, Bart was faced with a gigantic vault. Similar to what he did to the trap door, Bart sliced apart the vault door and entered inside. What he saw blew him away "Dragon eggs! Intact books! Steels! GOLD! JACKPOT!!"
Instead of taking the dragon eggs or the books, Bart's hands went towards the golds and steels that were placed in the shelves. After counting the steel ignots and the gold bars, Bart said "There are a hundred Valyrian steel ignots and one thousand gold bars! This is the best haul ever!!"
Bart started to do some victory dance on the spot, but he stopped midway and mumbled to himself "You left the life of piracy behind after joining the brotherhood Edward."
Shaking his head to clear his mind, he set his sights on the dragon eggs that were stored in the vault. Observing closely, he saw that the six eggs stored inside the vault, only two are intact as the rest is broken. Shaking his head, Bart started to look through the books next, he counted a dozen of them and with great interest Bart picked out the first book that caught his eyes "Thanks to being in exile, I was able to learn different languages and one of them is High Valyrian. Now, what kind of book is this?"
Looking at the title text written on the cover page of the book, Bart read out "Skorkydoso naejot bodmagho aōha zaldrīzes (How to train your dragon)"
Closing his eyes, he asked himself "They could have found some better name?"
Shaking his head, he put that book aside and started to read out the names of each book that was stored in the vault.
"Skorkydoso naejot mazverdagon nykeā zaldrīzes (How to make a dragon)"
"Skorkydoso naejot kipagon nykeā zaldrīzes {How to ride a dragon}"
"Skoro syt mandia wives iksos nykeā līs (Why sister wives are must)"
"Skorkydoso naejot mazverdagon valyrīha korzion (How to make valyrian steel)"
When he saw the fourth book, he took it out from the shelf and started to speed read it. Halfway through it, he closed the book and mumbled out "This is similar to the process of making Damascus steel, the only difference is that they used volcanic ash for the carbon content. Should I make something for my siblings? No, I can always come back here, I need to reach home first."
Saying so, he closed the book and through his mental connection called Bertha 'Bertha, sent some knights here to store the things I have found in my location.'
'Yes, my Lord.' Bertha replied to him.
Then using the mental connection, Bart asked Albern 'Hey, Albern. There are some dead dragon eggs with me. Can you use it or something?'
'If it's a dead one, you can give the death energy to the shadow knight for their grade promotion.; Albern said.
'Good to know. Alright Albern, prepare the ship for sail in two hours. We will be setting sail to Westeros.'