Capítulo 10: Ch10. Winterfell 2
While Thomas and Bellatrix traversed the crypt labyrinth, Irene was admiring the Godswood of Winterfell.
After arriving in this world, she quickly understood the magic is not very abundant here. But her sensory abilities revealed to her there indeed were a few spots with quite the influx of magic. One was deep north while quite a few were far away in the direction of the east.
Winterfell was also one of these magic-filled places. While not being overly magical it had a decent enough density to actually show on her senses brightly enough to sense it all the way from the Dreadfort.
The reason for that was these 'sacred' saplings. The Weirwood trees.
Irene smiled at the simplicity of locals, calling magic-conducting wood as sacred, connecting it to 'Old Gods'. She bent towards the carved face in the tree, as she inspected the flow of magic through it.
"Sigh, these trees are basically what saturates the air with magic from the ley-lines." She mused with a sad and sour frown when she realized the magic of this world is actually really disappearing.
Different from her or Bellatrix who had their own 'core', a piece of their soul, capable of producing their own magical energy, the magic of this world was completely dependent on these trees.
The problem was, even though what she and Bellatrix had was called magic, it was slightly different. While now that both joined the bond, their internal energy shifted, which made it possible to use 'spells' from both of their worlds with some practice. Deep down, however, these energies were similar yet still different. This made her sure, the magic of this world is also another matter entirely.
Oh, Irene was certain there are some magical beings who can have their own version of 'core' capable of producing their magic but without the oversaturation of air with magical energy, these beings would just never reach their full potential. And if they did, it would be a slow and tedious process. Maybe if they continuously produced it with some organ in their body, then it would be different because the energy would have to course through their body in order to reach the air and 'dissipate' slash saturate the air there.
Irene's attention returned towards the trees and she closed eyes in indignation. The faces were connected to the ley-lines located deep, extremely deep down in the core of this planet by some symbolic ritualistic bullcrap that was ceased to be used millennia ago in her world and while it worked, she was incredibly astonished someone, anyone really, managed to make a ritual such as this.
Symbols, intent, guide, flow.
Flow supplied by the magic conductivity of the trees.
The guide was obviously the caster who had to be magical and very magic sensitive. Most likely not a human, then.
The intent, well Irene doubted the intent was to create something with a connection to the ley-lines. Her thoughts strayed more towards the opinion the ritual was somewhat religious in nature. The caster most probably worshiped magic itself, some god of magic, or something closely connected to magic, so his intent to 'connect to the gods' basically did just that. Connected the magic-conductive tree with the ley-line, creating a make-shift 'chimney' for magical 'fumes' from the ley-line.
And that led her to the symbols. The reason why she was in a deep disbelief was that someone actually created the ritual. The symbols used for it was the carving on the bark, blood of the caster... and that's where her clues ended. She had no idea what else was used. For all intent and purposes, it might just have been some voodoo dance while naked, massive orgy, or even mass-slaughter of pigs, humans, demons, or who knows what. Symbolic magic was just that stupidly misleading.
Unless you knew the procedure and was a hundred percent sure it worked as you wanted it to, she would not recommend trying it. Who knows, you might actually just create some unfeeling immortal monster hell-bent on world destruction by dancing around and overpowering ritual for a good harvest! And if in the last two centuries some war, littering the soil with corpses, happened on the spot you do the ritual? Uh-oh.
Yes... no.
She gave up trying to understand the origin of these trees while hoping the casters had a clear view of what they actually did and decided it was high time to produce some staves for herself.
She put her palm gently on the bark of the tree, right on the forehead of the crying face, feeding it her magic, keeping it from either dissipating into the air or moving downward, to the ley-line.
The tree, saturated in her scarlet magical energy started to dye itself auburn-red as its leaves fell down, littering the ground in a crimson cover. The carved face started cracking, the symbol that connected the tree to the ley-line became damaged. Irene quickly snatched the connection and connected it to her magic. With the amounts of her energy inside the tree, it was almost child play and will make the staff in the best conductor for her and her alone. To anyone else it would be but a piece of dead wood but for her...
For her, it will be the best magic-casting tool, capable of magnifying and empowering even spells cast by her enormous and oppressive magic. Even she was not hopeful enough to get such a good find in a backwater world like this. A wood capable of withstanding her power. That came as a very pleasant surprise when the weirwood hardened enough to sustain ten percent of her magical prowess. An overwhelming majority of her spells used under ten percent so the staff would be able to handle it. Plus the harder the wood, the stronger physical hits she could deliver, the more abuse her new staff could take.
An anticipating grin appeared on her face when a childish voice called out to her from behind.
"Who are you and what are you doing here!"
She slightly turned her head and saw a boy with a sword pointing in her direction, slightly curly black hair on his head. Next to him was another boy, also with a sword but this one was more subdued, cowed.
Irene raised her eyebrow at them.
"You should not play with such dangerous toys, boys." She flippantly commented, continuing to focus on the tree.
"Stop! These trees are sacred!" The boy shrieked.
Irene, not paying attention to him, pushed her arm elbow-deep into the trunk as if she was sinking it to a tub of water. Her hand pulsed and the tree rippled with the energy of her Enchant. She made grasping motion and at once, the tree turned to ash, scattering in the wind. Only three massive auburn staves were left. One grasped in her hand and two floating next to it.
With a flick of her finger, the floating staves were Enchanted to transform into two red rings, attaching themselves on Irene's middle fingers on each hand. Only the staff she held in her hand was left. The staff was higher than her by a few inches, the head of the staff was a big, round jagged ball with space carved out in its core. A scarlet crystal formed in this space, storing some of Irene's magical reserves for later use and making the core of the staff glow ghostly red when magic is pushed into it. On top of the wooden ball, two protrusions pointed upwards and slightly curving, as if horns on the devil's head.
The boys looked at Irene with awe-filled, frightened looks. Never in their lives would they ever think, they would witness the magic. As excited as they were, both knew the stranger in front of them just turned their sacred tree to ash and that was a capital offense. They could not let her go!
"I am Robb Stark! The acting Lord of Winterfell! In my authority, I order you to surrender!" The confident boy shouted as the meek one was preparing to support him.
They circled her carefully, glad she was ignoring their presence and inspecting the somehow formed staff. Both boys were about to jump at her when they realized, their bodies were unable to move. Frozen there, they watched with wide terror-filled eyes as she turned to them.
"Boys will be boys." She sighed in exasperation. "Take this to the heart, boys. Jumping at an enemy you know is stronger than you without any clue how much stronger he or she is, is not bravery. That is foolishness. Oh, and Robb, was it? Authority and respect are working best when earned." She told them and walked away from the Godswood, leaving only rustling of the scarlet leaves on the ground and a big pile of ash as a reminder of her visit.
...
The trio met up in a close-by tavern.
"We should leave, we had to petrify Lady Stark." Thomas said.
"It's because you did not allow me to wipe her mind!" Bella pouted.
"Oh, Stark? I saw her son, Robb, in Godswood. The cute munchkin tried to stop me from destroying a weirwood." Irene rolled her eyes amusedly. "So, where to?"
"Eh, fancy taking over Iron Islands, ladies?" Thomas smirked as Irene's and Bella's faces split into grins. They started the journey towards the territory that just lost a rebellion as Irene started to narrate her findings of the weird facial trees.
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