293AC
The minute that the tavern wench was down the stairs, I rushed back into my chamber and slammed the door behind me. Quickly finding the chamberpot I rapidly emptied my stomach into it. Glad at least that it didn't add to the mess of spilled milk already halfway decorating my floor.
Unfortunately, while the vomiting slightly eased the motion sickness, it did not ease the ringing headache, the pain in my ears, or the stinging that extended out across my body, from the ends of my fingers to the core of my torso.
I had never let the lightning get so out of hand before. Let so much power come out to my skin at once. Even now it roiled in my core, forcibly suppressed, but lingering, blazing away inside of me a limitless well of lightning that rose with my fury and quieted with my calm.
"Storm king indeed…" I chuckled dryly to myself, falling backward onto my bed, away from the pot containing my emptied bowels, though the taste of vomit and ozone was still on my lips. The scorch marks decorating the room in jagged lines a testament to how overboard it had been before I reeled it in.
I ground my Palm against my face. My order to the woman had been stupid too, a product of my impaired state and addled reasoning no doubt. It wasn't too far off of what I would do normally, I was sure, but it had been too blunt, unreasonable. I didn't even know the woman's name.
And that wasn't even mentioning the other risks.
'I'll have Jaerys go out with a few men and arrest every mummer in this town.' It wouldn't be permanent of course, they would just need to be working for me before they could leave.
I didn't want to be burned as a witch after all.
Still, that could wait for the morning, as I settled down on the suddenly very inviting sheets beneath me, letting my fear sleep away into the long-delayed embrace of quiet sleep.
Unfortunately, my rest was not destined to be quiet.
I had barely laid down for a moment before I found myself standing once again in that great stone chamber beneath the seas, naked as either of the days I was born.
The ancient place seemed now more than ever a ruin, the ceiling had collapsed in part of the chamber since I had last visited, tons of rocks crashing down atop the statues of heroes and monsters in half of the chamber, the center held up only by the great copper globe of the world, which now seemed to be yet more corroded.
The great monster was there as before, stone scales covering his bejeweled form, lifeless statue eyes staring out at the world. His trident clutched in his hands.
I turned towards the globe, again marking it's various landmass to memory, I was sure Mt existing maps were erroneous, soon enough though perhaps I would correct them.
Whatever the great Fishman monster had to say, he moved not at all this visit, even as I journeyed forward to stand at the foot of his throne, calling out to him. His form remained unmoving, the jewelry decorating his scaley body and his trident the only parts of the seeming statue not coated in stone.
After a thorough inspection of the enormous creature, I decided that it was indeed unlikely to move or speak if it had not done so by now.
That in mind, I moved towards the stone door to his right, mirrored across the hall, which seemed to lead out of the ancient sunken chamber.
I found it led into a staircase, spiraling up through rock and water to the area above, so high that I could not see its end through the chasm at its center.
I began the climb slowly, gradually picking up my pace as I found that my legs didn't seem to tire in that foggy, dreamlike state.
Eventually, at the top of what might have been a mile of stairs, I stepped out into the open water.
Or rather, into the center of a temple exposed to it. The stairs deposited me behind a great altar in the great structure, easily dwarfing the Great Sept of Baelor in grandeur and magnificence, or it might have done the latter in its prime. Now it was coated in coral, barnacles, and other sea life, fish swam through the spaces between the ten great stone pillars which supported the enormous dome of its roof, and through those gaps I could see below it a vast city stretching out into the distance, similarly ruined, though nonetheless spectacular in its scale.
My attention was diverted from the beauty of the great ruin however as the sound of a harp turned eyes back into the central chamber of the temple, to a raised dais where a lone figure, inhuman in its shape, strummed at the strings of a harp.
I carefully made my way forward, stepping across the rubble until I could see the strange person clearly. The creature before me was a hybrid of fish and man, as I had expected, and his masculinity was abundantly clear by nature of his body clad only in some strange pearl necklaces strung around his neck in concentric circles. He stood around seven or eight feet tall, far larger than me, and two sets of arms hung from his shoulders. His hands were clawed and webbed, and his face was bulbous and honestly fairly stupid looking, like a grotesque fusion of parrot-fish and man.
He did not turn to face me as I approached, instead seemingly content to continue playing a somber tune on his harp.
After some moments of watching and listening, hearing his claws elicit soft tunes from the instrument, I raised my hand, trying to get his attention, and promptly found myself awake in bed, the morning of Grey Gallows coming to greet me with its odious light, my headache coming back in force.
As my mind slowly began to grind through the gears of the Lovecraftian dreams I was apparently having, I turned my eyes to my core where the power of lightning bubbled and roared.
'What… what am I dealing with here?'
"Heave."
Aurane Waters, Valyrion bastard and conqueror of Bloodstone, or at least Salt-Town, smiled as he crossed the muddy trench which was even now being filled with sharpened wooden stakes.
He was not one for such things himself, but it was clear that the engineers of Dragonstone knew well what they were doing here, though the same could not necessarily be said of the soldiers under their command. Still, the battlements of the rising fort Saltspire were growing steadily enough. It was no castle to be sure, not yet at least, with logs cut from the forest further inland on the island serving as the initial walls of the structure.
The fort was to overlook the eastern side of the Bay of Salt-Town, to be matched by a sister at the western end some point in the near future, earth was being packed into a raised interior, to protect it against cannons, apparently, as the Prince did not think his monopoly on the devices would last forever. The fort itself would be packed with them ideally, though it's initial armament were apparently not the rifled devices the boats were provided with. Instead, it would be armed with the older smooth-bores which the Dragonstone foundries had produced in excess prior to the creation of newer models.
Aurane could find little distance between the two, both seemed perfectly capable of shattering masts and sinking vessels, but then, the Prince claimed that the distance was vast, and he didn't particularly want to argue with the boy who had forged all of this.
It hadn't taken long for the first three structures in the fortress to be raised. A command building, little more than a Hut truly, and he preferred his quarters on the water, was the first to arise, followed by a small chapel for the gods, and then by a prison.
It was awfully easy to outfit a prison in towns where the slave trade was so common, though now the cages were mostly occupied by their former owners.
Not all though, and that was why he was visiting the dingy building today.
"Up and at 'em, Sal." He said, gesturing for one of the guards to splash the man's face, even as Polly repeated his words in her croaking voice.
"Up and at 'em, up and at em."
He loved that bird sometimes.
The man on the floor was bruised, but still in better condition than most of the others in this place. Everyone knew he had been a pirate of course, but the folk in town spoke well enough of him that he didn't get the beatings that the slavers did, and most of the injuries he had picked up were from his drunken attempts to escape arrest the previous evening.
He seemed far soberer today, as he sputtered out the water.
"It's Captain Sal." The Man choked out, sitting up, before turning his eyes towards Aurane.
It was almost like a mummer's play how they widened in size as the man realized his situation.
"Aw hells, no disrespect meant… Captain…."
"Aurane. Aurane Waters and you are Sal-Kaeron, a fairly prominent pirate who had henceforth evaded my notice in this town."
"Evaded," Polly squawked "Evaded!"
"Quite."
The man had the sense to look bashful.
"Ah well, I wasn't trying to evade you, not exactly, I just wasn't particularly looking for you, thought I'd let things cool down a bit before I went looking for work, specially with the way you handled old Sam. Dumb as he was."
Aurane chuckled slightly, in a way his Mates told him was menacing. Bloody Sam and his officers had been lined up in the town square and shot one at a time by Aurane himself, then strung up in a pair of former slave-cages for use as gibbets over the edge of the bay to mewl and die like the wretches they were.
If anything would convince pirates that their time here was up, it would be the rotting corpses of men like them hung over the bay under the sight of the fortresses' guns.
"And why shouldn't ye be joining him? You're a well-known pirate yourself, albeit of a slightly better reputation, though I put little stock in that."
The man balked. "Only a little better ye say? Why Sam was a bloody tiger shark he was, looking to chum the waters, not make a living, my ships were raiders sure, but not loons." The man smiled, even in his drenched and bruised state. "Look, I have a ship in the harbor if ye haven't sunk it for sport already, and I know her in and outs, what say ye let me fight Fer you instead of doing something regrettable."
Aurane stared at the man for a long moment, before throwing his head back in laughter.
"Oh, that is a gutsy hand to play, but are you sure you can back it up with Yer cards?" Aurane blinked through his laughter. "That ship is Narrow Sea Company property now, acquired as pirated goods. If ye think y'll be some free sells ail sort then you are quite mistaken."
Before the man could object, however, Aurane did raise a finger. "Still, I'm afraid this is a tad above my station, I can't recruit you on my own volition. Regardless of my opinion." Aurane scratched at his stubble. "I'll have ye put on the ship to Grey Gallows, still in chains o'course. Ye can plead Yer case to the Prince when they go there to coordinate."
The man, Sal Kaeron, nodded sharply, his tired eyes sobering plainly.
"I can live with that."
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