CHAPTER 8

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Charles sighed as he felt another headache approaching fast.

"Charles, where is your brother and sister?" his father questioned him giving him a hard stare.

"I haven't seen them today, father," he replied evenly.

"What must I do to get those two in line," Rickard sighed.

Charles had to admit. Both Zoe and Percy were always looking for trouble. Zoe sneaked out to the Wolfswood without anyone knowing about it to 'sharpen her skills.' The last time she had done that, she was missing for over a day and their mother was hysterical worrying about her little girl who was in danger. Their father arranged a hunting party to comb the entire forest if he had to. He had not seen his father that agitated ever since he found Percy had sneaked to the crypts when he was only five.

Even he joined the hunting party while Percy was missing as usual. Without his sister there was almost no way of knowing where Percy was during his disappearances. Halfway to the forest they saw his sister coming out as if nothing had happened with a pack of wolves at her heels. She was playing with them while she was returning home at a leisurely pace without a single care.

That had led to the historical standoff between Zoe and their father with neither of them backing down. But in the end he had gotten her word to never do that again as he gave her leave to go out explore when she turned sixteen. Charles had a sinking feeling that his father would not keep his word and would drag that time as long as he could. Even if he did let Zoe go, he was sure that there would be troupe of followers at her heels to keep 'his baby safe.'

Rickard was many things. To his children he would always be the overbearingly loving father that kept a strict eye on them to make sure they weren't harmed in any way.

Thanks to this incident the Winterfell kennels now boasted a full pack of had been funny to see the look on his father's face when Zoe stated that her little friends were not regular wolves but direwolves. The creatures that had not been seen for centuries were now part of the castles day to day activities. It had piled up more duties on him as the wolves seemed to only obey people of the Stark family. They had to keep their regular kennel hands away since the wolves had become aggressive towards them. Today the wolves just roamed about the premises as if they owned the place. The pony sized dogs didn't disturb anybody unless they were provoked. His younger siblings had personal wolves that followed them like puppies. Even his father had taken to the alpha of the pack and the duo was seen mostly together.

Then there was Percy. Percy was like smoke and mirrors. Of the three siblings he was the one who least out in the open. He rarely ventured out of the castle opting to explore the abandoned sections of the castle looking for the same thing he had got him the thorough spanking from their father. He came and went like a ghost. A ghost that was prodigious in combat as he had bested most of the fully grown men under the Stark banner.

Other than that Percy helped him in his little projects and often participated in sword fighting down in the courtyard. But he was always there when they needed him the most.

"Charles dear, why don't you go look for them," his mother Lyarra said.

Lyarra was a striking woman who was kind and at the same time strong. She thought the world about her children and would go to any lengths to protect them. She had been rather mad at their father for punishing Percy for his little misadventure and didn't speak to him until he apologized to her. She even kept their secrets from their father. Even after five children, she was the most beautiful woman in the entire north.

"No need mother, we are here," came Percy's voice as he strode into the room with Zoe at his heels.

Charles smirked as his siblings walked in. They had changed a lot. None of them looked even vaguely similar to the appearance they had in their previous life. All of them now sported the classic Stark looks, but they were only limited to their hair color and body structure.

Charles always wondered why Ananke turned them to elves since they were being reborn in this world. Genetics were what mattered right? You get your traits from your parents. If you were born to human… you couldn't be anything else other than a human. But what he had discounted was the existence of souls. They were born humans with elven souls.

Souls were your imprint on this world. It was like the software that ran a robot. The metal chassis of the robot only housed what truly made it that particular robot. The same could be said about living beings and souls. The souls were what gave meaning to the fleshy body that others perceived.

Vampirism didn't only change your body. It also changed the structure of your soul. That was why no matter how a vampire died, they would be reborn again as a vampire. There was no going back to being humans for them. Until they fade, a converted vampire would be just that... a vampire.

Ananke had to alter their soul to avoid this. So here they were… elven souls within human skins. The problem was that no human body could contain an elven soul. Little by little their bodies were being altered to house their powerful cores. He had calculated that their transformation would be completed by the time they were sixteen. Due to this transformation they were stronger and faster than anybody of the same age. Charles knew for a fact that both he and Percy was only a little bit weaker that their Master-At-Arms. Should they compete in pure brute strength, they would not be at a disadvantage against men who were in their prime.

But what baffled Charles and Percy was the fact that they couldn't hold a candle to their father. The man was known as the massive wolf for a reason. But his strength was just ridiculous. Either he was undergoing the same transformation as them as they had a vague suspicion that he spoke to Ananke since the goddess mentioned that she would give their parents a heads up or the Stark bloodline hid something that they had not identified yet.

Due to this active transformation, his sister was already turning out to be a beauty that the entirety of the Seven Kingdoms would try to win over. His father had declared her to be the Silver rose of Winterfell during her naming. She was turning out to be just that. The entire north was proud to call her one of their own as they boasted about her beauty to the southerners.

"Where were you?" Rickard demanded from his youngest son breaking Charles from his musing.

Percy looked around and saw that there were a couple of servants loitering about the Great Hall.

"Let's go to the family room," he said as he couldn't send these people away. The Great Hall was a place of community. It didn't just belong to the Starks. Anyone from the lords of the north to the poorest commoner was welcome within these walls.

Seeing that his son was serious, Rickard got up and led them out of the room without another word. Charles followed right behind him ignoring the whispering between his siblings and their mother. The three had a weirdly close relationship while Charles was closer to their father than either Zoe or Percy.

"Where are Brandon and Lyanna?" Percy asked their mother.

"They were tired. I gave them an early dinner and put them to sleep," his mother replied.

Charles chucked as he thought about his younger siblings. The birth of him and his siblings were celebrated in the north since this was the first time triplets had grace their family. They were considered a gift from the old gods. But what surprised the entire realm was the birth of his younger siblings. After triplets had graced the Starks, it was followed with the birth of twins. Many commoners considered their house blessed and flocked around them to bask in the 'blessing.' The population of Wintertown had boomed due to this. This was the reason they had to expand the population centre outside the castle. He had taken the opportunity to get his father to completely redesign the settlement to a certain standard. It had cost them money, yes… but this was a long term investment that the Starks could profit from for a long time.

Twins were two years younger than them and they were already a handful. Their father said that the wolfblood in them was strong. Both his sibling seemed to adore Zoe than either he or Percy. May be that was due to the fact that Percy was mostly missing and he was usually busy helping his father. They were already pestering Zoe to teach them to wield weapons. To them Zoe would always be the cool elder sister that helped them in all their matters. Percy was the cold, mysterious, strong yet caring brother and Charles was the caring, strong eldest brother who everybody looked up to due to his genius.

They entered the family room. It was a room that was located in the family wing which they used to get their family together every day before bed to talk about their day. The time they spent in this room together was a bonding moment for all of them. The room was larger than a usual bedroom. It was decorated with Stark heraldry. A fireplace was situated next to the plush seats so that they could have a comfortable time even in the coldest of days.

After everybody walked in Percy closed the door behind them and uttered a whisper. Charles recognized the word as it was meant to silence the room so that even if somebody on the other side the door was to place their ear on the keyhole, they would hear nothing but silence.

"What did you wanted to talk about?" Rickard asked after settling himself comfortably next to their mother.

"This," Percy pulled a massive tome that had been hidden away under a pile of animal hide in the corner. He gave it to his father and started to pull some more items.

Charles ignored his brother and peered at the tome over his father's shoulder since his parents had seated themselves together. The book was filled with runes of First Men. From a cursory glance it was about Brandon the Builder and the time he raised castles and the infamous wall.

"This is the Chronicles of Brandon the Builder… the original book. This is supposed to be lost. The duplicates have all eroded over time. Where did you find this?" their mother asked Percy as their father kept on reading it as if he had struck gold. It wasn't surprising to see their mother know about the origins of the book. She knew about their family history more than their father. He sometimes consulted with her when it came to family matters as he wasn't sure on how to proceed.

"Down in the nexus," Percy replied nonchalantly picking up a wicked looking dagger that was almost the length of his forearm and picking his teeth with it.

"Nexus? Do you mean you found it?" asked their father sharply tearing his eyes away from the book.

"Yes. I suppose you knew about its existence?"

"Of course. All Starks knew about it. But nobody has been able to find it since the time it was sealed during it was sealed when Theon the Hungry Wolf went to Essos to raze Andalos. My father told me that all Stark patriarchs try their luck in finding the room within the abandoned parts f the castle during their tenure as the Lord of the Castle. But none had succeeded. The room is said to contain things that were of importance to our family. Of what… I do not know. Tell me how did you find it?"

"Do you remember the time you punished me for going into the crypts?" Percy asked with a small smile.

"Very distinctly," Rickard said while looking a bit sheepish at the glare his wife directed at him. Even Charles had to crack a grin. It was not every day you saw the fearsome Perseus Jackson reduced to a screaming and crying mess. He secretly cheered his father on as he punished his brother. It was not out of spite, but out of concern. They had not even been in this world for five years and Percy was up to his usual habit of disregarding danger. He knew that this world had untold perils that they were not familiar with as they had read some gruesome details about wraiths and other spectral creatures in the library.

But the incident had caused Percy to view their father in a much different light. Unlike Poseidon who let his children get away with anything, Rickard was the sort of man who would stoop down to punishing them for their own safety. This action had raised the respect the two brothers had for their father. It also caused Percy to be sneakier in his little misadventures as he knew that being caught equated to an appropriate punishment.

"I don't believe I told you why I went down there," Percy began. "You do know that magic exists right?" he questioned his father.

Rickard looked a bit uncomfortable in talking about something that he, Wyman and Rowan had tried hard to hide. "I know that it exists," he admitted slowly not wanting to lie or divert the subject.

"The truth is that all three of us are sensitive to magic and can use it," Percy dropped the bomb that they had been postponing for quite a while.

"Percy!" Zoe harshly whispered at her brother grabbing him by his ear.

"Ow..Ow… Zoe we have to tell them sooner or later. This is the perfect time to bring our parents into the know since we have already decided to go ahead with our plans," Percy placate his sister.

"What do you mean? I thought we were going to implement them once we found a pace that nobody could find. Otherwise it would do more harm than good if the King and his army come knocking down at our doors," Charles frowned.

They had wanted to implement some of the plans they had designed for some time. The first and foremost thing they had in mind was to bring out the eggs and hatch their familiars. But the problem was that there were eyes and ears everywhere. They needed a secluded location to bring out the gift that Lady Ananke bestowed upon them as the creatures needed a safe place to grow until maturity. If by any chance the Mad King got ears about the amazing flying creatures of the North, their family would be routed as they were not ready to face the world yet. There were families like the Boltons who were waiting for one slip up to become the Lords of the North.

Charles knew that his father had plans for the upcoming storm. He wasn't privy to their details but he could identify patterns. The Starks, Maderlys and the Reeds were up to something. Already his father was recruiting talented people from all around North and even from Essos. He knew that their father would fill them in when they were ready. So he waited patiently as he would be the one that would rise to the place of their father in the future.

"He already found a place," sighed Zoe.

"Ah," he exclaimed as he knew that Percy would go ahead with the plans with or without them as he was tired of just sitting around. That was about the only habit Percy had with his previous life. He was impatient. Be that the wolfblood in him that their father said or the instincts that he gained by being related to the sea he didn't know, but he knew Percy was an impatient man who would never sit back doing nothing when he could be doing something proactive.

"Zoe, let your brother go. And Perseus start explaining," his father commanded.

"Fine," Percy said as he glared at Zoe. "The thing is for a long time we felt this feeling of unnaturalness that lingered throughout the castle. I wanted to find the root of it. But Charles and Zoe dismissed it because they believed it to be something natural. My first step was to go through all the sections we currently inhabit. But when I couldn't find anything I went down into the crypts and we all know what happened after that. But that tour wasn't without any fruits because I found out that the feeling was rather muffled down in the crypts. And that only left me with the uninhabited areas."

Percy got up and brought a roll of paper that had been lying with the items he took out. "This is the layout of Winterfell. I added everything I found out in my ventures to the layout that I found out in the library. The deeper I went into the castle more and more secret rooms I found. Most of these rooms were hidden behind magic," Percy said as he unrolled the paper.

Charles had to admit that he was impressed. This was two years worth of work on Percy's part. The main reason why uninhabited parts weren't used was because it was built in a way that one would completely lose his sense of direction. It was easy to get lost down there. Luckily these areas were mostly underground otherwise a massive chunk of the castle proper would have been abandoned.

Charles could see three levels of the castle underground. They only knew and used about a quarter of the first level. The other two levels were below these areas and spanned a larger expanse. Some of the areas even spread further than the limits of Wintertown. The core region of this underground network was designed in a way that was similar to the Pentagon on Earth. The lowest level had a central chamber in the empty part of the pentagon while the layers above them were empty as if it was designed to provide extra security to the central chamber so that it couldn't be breached from the layer above.

It was impressive to see a structure that were eight millennia old still holding itself without damage. There was so much space down there that they could fit the entire population of the North and still have room to spare.

"This is the Nexus," Percy pointed at the central chamber on the third layer.

"How did you navigate this labyrinth without getting lost? Percy I told you not to o anything stupid. What would have happened if you had gotten lost down there? Do you think how much your mother would get hurt?" Lyarra asked passionately from her son.

"Mom, I know I promised to stay safe. I did stay safe. And you don't have to worry. There was a confusion curse set in the tunnels so that any explore would get lost. I just altered it so that it wouldn't affect me," Percy said as he hugged his mother with one arm.

"You said you could do magic?" their father questioned them with a steely gaze. It was the same gaze he had when he was extremely serious. But you could see the subtle hint of pride in his eyes. It was Percy who he was worried the most as he was the only child that didn't fear him openly. Even Charles was scared of angering his father.

"Yes," Charles replied for Percy.

The three had a long conversation on what they could and couldn't reveal to their families almost a year ago. It was done so that they could all be on the same page on matters at hand. One thing they vehemently agreed on was to never mention anything about their previous life. It was their past and it was a past that none of them wanted to look back on. Right now they were given blank slates and it was this slate they wanted to fill without interference from the previous slate.

Magic was something they had to reveal to their parents eventually. The three could already sense the presence of magic within them. They had the ability to learn and eventually when they were comfortable with the idea, they wanted to teach them so that they could get out of dangerous situations should neither three of them were there to help.

'Fire erupt on my hand without burning it,' Charles said loud and clear and watched amazement fill their parents faces as a ball of fire erupted on his hand. The flames rose to about a foot in height and he waved his hand showing that he was in control of the fire and it didn't harm him.

"Magic," their mother whispered. "When? How?"

"We don't know," Zoe replied sticking to their preplanned explanation. "From our younger days we had an instinctive ability to use it. We experimented with it to find out what we could do. Don't worry… we didn't do anything dangerous. I kept these two knuckleheads from going overboard. But we knew magic was frowned upon. It was not seen after the death of the dragons. So we kept it quiet until we were sure we could control it perfectly."

"What was that thing you said earlier in a strange language?" their father asked.

"That dad, is the Language of Truth. We don't know its true name, so we have started to call it Avalonian. It is the language of the forces of nature and it controls all things that we see. So by speaking it and infusing it with our own power we can do 'magic,'" Zoe explained.

"There's more to it than that, but yes... basically if anybody with the ability to do magic was to speak the language with intent, they could do what they wanted to provided they are powerful enough though I believe those who have a strong willpower would be able to steer magic to do what they want. It would take a long time to see results though. The language makes magic instantaneous and easier to manage," Percy said.

"But obviously there are rules we must adhere to when using it. Otherwise we could die from magical exhaustion or blow up due to power build up," Charles added.

"So all three of you could do this?" their father asked.

"Yes," Charles replied.

"Getting back to the topic, I discovered the Nexus almost a month ago. I've been reading on what I found down there. Mostly they are firsthand accounts of our family. There are also a few things that I think you would find interesting." Grinning at their questioning looks he elaborated, "I found a book how to train as a warg."

"That would help the Reeds a lot," their father blurted and looked sheepish as he had inadvertently revealed something he should have not. Their mother gave him a glare and turned to her children.

"Really you found a way to train as a warg?" his mother asked excitedly as the prospect of seeing through the eyes of a bird was something he knew she had always wanted. His mother like Zoe, Percy and the twins were free spirits. They didn't like to be constrained. They belonged out in the open. It was why they were close to each other. He on the other hand valued order and systematic approach. That was why he and his father were close as they both valued this trait.

"That's not all, he also found the Winter Throne," Zoe said casually.

"Aww Zoeee… you took my limelight away," Percy complained immediately.

"WHAT!?" his father on the other hand had jumped up and almost lifted Percy up by his collars. "You mean to tell me that the greatest artifact of the Northern Realm was sitting right beneath our feet this whole time?"

"Yeah…?" Percy replied slowly.

"This changes everything," Charles heard his father mutter as he started to pace and run his hands on his beard and hair.

The three siblings looked at each other in question as they didn't know what had set their father off.

"Rickard!" his mother exclaimed. "Calm yourself. You are acting strange in front of our children."

"Sorry," he said calming himself down. But Charles could see his mind formulating plan after plan after Percy's grand revelation.

The true symbol of Stark's power was not the bronze crown that the Targaryens spirited away. It was this legendary throne of ice that denoted their power. It was an artifact that was said to have been here, in this very location where the mighty castle of Winterfell was erected even before the arrival of the First Men during the Dawn Age. It was a precursor item that proved Westeros had a civilization long before the human advent. And that civilization didn't belong to the Children. What happened to them and who they were was lost over the turning of time.

Charles knew the throne was destroyed many years ago. He knew it because it was the duty of the Stark Patriarch to teach his heir about some of this sensitive information. This throne was the sole reason for rivers of blood since there was a myth amongst the nobles that whoever possessed it had the legitimacy to rule the North.

"Let's come back to that later," his father spoke. "Tell me what you meant by 'your plans'?"

This was the tricky part. They didn't want to divulge many of the things that Ananke had said to them. This world was not ready for paradigm shifting revelations. So they had to ease most of their new inventions slowly into the society since most of the common folk were highly superstitious. It would only take a perfectly placed rumor to get the commoners o rally against the Starks.

"You're up," Percy grinned at him throwing him under the bus. He found it highly amusing to push him forward and make him the face of their operation just because he was born first. Even Zoe who was older than him participated in this practice.

Charles sighed, thinking of the times he was back at Hephaestus Cabin. At least there his siblings were either afraid of him or were obedient enough that he could order them about because of respect. That didn't work with his new siblings. Both of them were wild as the wind. They did as they wished. And he was always left behind to deal with the aftermath. Even his youngest siblings were like that. He thought that only he amongst all his siblings thought about his actions before committing to them.

"Charles," his father broke him out of his thoughts. "I know there are things you don't want to tell us. We know… you were given to us by the Old Gods. You were sent here to this world to start anew. I do not know whether you remember your past lives. I suspect that you do as no other ten year old could do a tenth of the things you could do. You are smarter than most of the people I know. And I certainly don't want you to open up about your past lives until you are ready. I just want you to know that you can trust us. The five people in this room…we are family. I don't want there to be secrets between us. So if you are hesitating because of some reason let me tell you my side of story first."

Charles, Zoe and Percy listened to their father's little speech with wide eyes. They always made sure that they were not caught doing things inappropriate to their age. And they had a vague feeling that their father had talked to the 'Old Gods', since Ananke said that she would give their parents a heads up. Of what the goddess or her underling revealed, they were not sure. Their parents had never mentioned anything about the Old Gods or anything regarding to their birth until now. So they were not sure on how to approach some of the subjects that they wanted to talk with their parents. That was the reason that the three siblings kept quiet even when Charles could have saved his father a lot of effort in his grand scheme for the North.

So their father started to tell them the tale about how he met with an Old God. He told them how the alternate future in which they weren't born could have gone. Zoe had tears in her eyes when she heard about the details pertaining to his death. He and Percy gritted his teeth loudly when he heard of the gruesome details of the fate of their family. Even their mother who had apparently known about this encounter shed tears about the destiny of her family.

His father explained that his children, 'his gifts' as he called them would change this future and free the Northern Kingdom once again. The reason why he had become agitated after hearing about Percy's discovery was because a part of the prophecy like sentence had come true. They had found the throne of winter. They had found a symbol for the Northerners to rally behind.

He then went to detail about how he was building a platform for them to make their destiny come true. Charles knew for a fact that Silena was born to the Manderly family. Though they had yet to meet he was extremely happy that their father had betrothed the two of them weeks after their birth. It had been a puzzle to the three why he had done so right after their birth. It couldn't be a coincident right? It was one of the things that made the three suspect that his father had some sort of communication. Now everything was becoming clear.

The Manderlys, Reeds were with his father and they were planning for a change… a change that would one day define the entire North.

Charles listened as his father explained how he was actively stopping the spread of the Septs and how he was squashing their influence. He also revealed all that he had done in the past ten years including how the Reeds were monitoring every bit of information to how the Maderlys were providing a barrier to the North along with importing foreign talent. How they were looking into ways to increase the food production in the North. Currently they were importing from Braavos since he didn't want to go back to being dependent on the Southerners.

When he had done explaining the room became quiet. The preparations were almost finished. Their father was slowly implementing his plans and now they had an opportunity to fine tune them and make adjustments with the advanced knowledge they had with them. Charles already had a few ideas on how to improve upon his father's ideas.

Zoe and Percy nodded their head slightly and that was the signal of their approval to give their parents a basic run down of what they had in mind.

"Thank you for telling us this father," he began. To outsiders it must have looked strange for a ten year old to speak with an adult as if they were peers. But within this room were people they could trust and depend. So he decided to go for it.

"The thing is father, we have storm dragon eggs with us and we want to hatch them."

"You have dragons?" his mother interrupted.

"Storm Dragons," he clarified. "Not the kind the Targaryens bred. Even we do not know the full extent of their abilities. Also we have another species with us that have the ability to fly. But we'll come back to that later. The dragons would need at least a year to reach maturity before we could reveal them. As Percy had found a safe location for them to grow, we will start hatching them. Percy will be in charge of this process."

"Also we need more information," Zoe added.

"Yes, the library of Winterfell may contain a vast collection of books. But there are books that we don't own yet. For that we must find ways to obtain copies. I suggest raiding the Night's Watch or the Citadel. These are the only two locations that have a larger horde of books than Winterfell. There is also the need to establish a printing press."

"A printing press?" his father questioned.

"It's a machine that helps us to copy and mass produce books at a rapid pace. I will show you how it works later. We need the commoners to be able to read at least. No kingdom will prosper if their populous is backwards. I must thank you for bringing all those talented children under your wing. They will be the first of the trained scholars we need in various positions in our command structure."

"Charles, I think you better head down to the forge and teach the blacksmiths on how to improve the craft. But you must get them to act discreet," Percy added.

"Improve metalwork?" their father interrupted again in wonder.

"Yes father. You may not know it, but Charles here is a genius when it comes to the forge. He could create cheaper yet stronger steels the like you have never seen before," Percy said with a smirk.

"For that we need to change the forge design and create a whole new system," Charles clarified. "But yes, I can do that. But back to information… We can' raid the Citadel right now. The Night's Watch keep their information closed as well. "

"I may have a solution for that," his father said. "The Night's Watch is currently limited to three castles along the wall. What you don't know is that most of the equipment on the other castles that couldn't be used in active combat was left when the castles were abandoned in hopes that they could one day reuse their establishments. We could discreetly raid those castles and obtain what we want."

"Yes, that could work. We'll leave that to you father. In the meantime I could go take a look at the Citadel when things have calmed down. Who knows what those old cronies have managed to hide in that tower of theirs'," Percy said with a smirk. "Don't worry mother. I won't leave just yet. There is much to be done here," he added as he saw the look on his mother's face.

"We also need an order like the maesters that are loyal to our family. Let me finish," Zoe said as she saw the look in their father's face. "This order would exist to create new things and explore new ventures of knowledge, and yes that may include arcane studies. That is why we must make them loyal to our house and only our house. Your recruits will be perfect in establishing it. Maybe we could make it like a college."

"That's a great idea. The college would be open to all northerners willing to learn the higher subjects offered in it. Yes… this could work. We will provide them with a salary and will add benefits with each new thing they discover," Charles agreed. "This will also create the platform to train the people we need for various positions."

"I think we should have a permanent army as well," Percy being the most militant added his thoughts. "We can base them off the Romans or the Atlantians. This will provide us with an edge in ground combat. Then again we need a permanent base for the army. As large as Winterfell is, we can't base everything in one location."

"True… but we need to go step by step. We have time on out hand and all we need is the keep the southerners out of our business. Father's actions will help us in that regard," Zoe agreed.

"We also need a new navy. Our land is large and we need a strong naval presence to keep foreigners out of our shores. The best location to build it is the Sea Dragon Point on the West Coast. The Manderlys can start building smaller ships in the Eastern coast until we can establish a naval dock somewhere in the East," said Percy looking thoughtful. "I think I can come up with some ship designs."

"Your ship designs would put up as the dominant naval power," said Charles with a chuckle. He knew that Percy was abnormally talented in maritime engineering. His designs would prove to be too advanced for this technologically backwards world.

"If we want to do that then we have to create a new harbor and a keep at Sea Dragon Point. The location seemed to be uninhabited… Mormonts are loyal to our family right? We can obtain their help and get them in the loop like the Reeds and Manderlys. The new harbor will help them as well because it till provide protection to their home," Charles said looking thoughtful.

"What about food?" Zoe asked. "We can't keep importing food from outside. We need a stable source of food."

"I have already thought about that. I heard that Braavos had a similar grain to rice they import form Yi'Ti. We can plant that near the neck," said Percy.

"Yes, and maybe corn and wheat could be cultivated in the Rills. That region is mostly uninhabited. We can use the land as large farms. Potatoes and other yams are another option for other places," Charles agreed.

"Also we can make glasshouses as well to produce fruits, herbs and other necessities," Zoe said and Charles agreed. He knew the basic workings on how to make glass and that knowledge could be utilized here. Glass being one of the luxuries of the world could also be exported to gain a healthy income.

While the three were tossing ideas off of each other their parent looked at their eldest children with visible pride on their faces. They remained quiet glancing at each other now and then and smiling as plans for the future started to unveil before their eyes. They too had plans. They had discussed about them countless times before committing to them. But these plans the triplets were going on about… they were far larger in scale and much grander than their measly ideas.

If they had thought about the things their children were discussing while they were in similar discussion with Wyman and Rowan, all parties would have scrapped them due to them being unrealistic. But here they were listening to the most unrealistic plans they could ever imagine. But the difference was that their children had the confidence in all of them. None of the plans they made seemed farfetched to them.

Rickard was just happy that the ten years he had been gathering talented individuals and skilled laborers was going to see results right before his eyes. He was also glad that the 'little birds' and spies were all but wiped out within the vicinity of Winterfell Even the problem with the maester was dealt with beautifully. For all they knew maester Walys was alive and working at Winterfell. Even his actions against the Faith were bearing fruits. The Seven were almost nonexistent and there was a boom in the followers of the Old Gods.

While his three eldest were talking he decided to interfere and ask one question that everything they talked about would depend.

"Charles… tell me where you are going to find money for all of this? I have some money saved up but it won't be enough to do more than half of what you want to do. If you want to establish a new settlement at Sea Dragon Point, that money would not suffice at all."

"That won't be a problem dad," said Percy with his usual smirk. "You see… down in the lower levels of the castle, there are store rooms. Store rooms where our ancestors have horded quite a wealth if you'd asked me. Our ancestors have mined and horded gold for quite a while without the knowledge of people outside the family. It seemed like the Starks weren't the wasting types that history makes us to be. Don't worry. That money is more than enough to do everything we have in mind and more. Even if it wasn't there it's not too hard to gather gold in the ground though magic. You just need a little more time."

"Yes father. We had our initial hopes on gathering the necessary gold through magic. Now that Percy had found the Stark horde, we don't have to worry at all," confirmed Zoe.

"What else is down there?" Rickard asked curiously.

"Gems, jewels, various heirlooms and other valuables. Also there's a shit ton of weapons down there. Here Charles what do you make out of this," Percy tossed him the dagger he picked his teeth with.

Charles looked at the craftsmanship keenly and assessed the weapon with an eye that spoke of experience. Rickard and Lyarra couldn't see much of the weapon, but its ominous black glint told them that it was of an exceptional make and probably cost a lot to make.

"Looks like Stygian steel… but yet it's not. Have to do a few tests to make sure. Was this from storage as well?"

"Yeah… though there are not a lot of weapons of that steel. Whatever it was it is hard to make. Others are similar to this," he said pointing to a great sword he brought from below.

"I need to go there to take a look," Charles said finally,

"I'm coming as well. Tomorrow after the morning session in the Great Hall, we will go down there to take a look for ourselves. And I want to see what you kinds are planning down there," Rickard added with a smile.

"Well… that's for tomorrow. Now we have to go for dinner. And Percy, I know you missed lunch. So don't try to weasel yourself out of a large diner young man. Your mother is going to force feed you tonight."

"Aww man," Percy complained as his family erupted in laughter at his expense.

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