LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 4: Tyrosh
Renly stood on the ship which would take him to Essos. It wasn't uncommon for lords and ladies to leave their work to their Castellen whilst they travelled the world, that is why lords and ladies could attend tourneys all over Westeros, even a multi year long excursion wasn't unheard of, so he assembled a crew, completely loyal to him and set out to the free cities. He watched the waves crashing by and the seagulls screaming up above. As he was transfixed on nature, one of his crewmen had approached him, Ryu, an immigrant from Essos who had served the Baratheons for close to two decades, since before he was born. He was chosen to accompany him because he spoke high Valyrian, the main language in most of the free cities. Not that he couldn't speak the language, Renly had spent quite a bit of time learning multiple languages but his grasp of high Valyrian in particular was rather basic, so having someone who spoke it fluently would help.
"Milord", Ryu spoke with a thick accent when speaking the Westeros common tongue, "we have seen your magic at your tourney and the crew and I were wondering whether you could show us some more?"
"Of course", Renly said and looked around… what to do? Polymorph would be flashy enough, he decided. He pointed his finger at one of the seagulls resting on the ship and said a quick incantation. Before their eyes, the seagull transformed into a pig.
"I told you, it was true, our Lord actually is blessed", said one of his crewmates to another, "now pay up"
Coins exchanged hands.
"Is that… permanent?"
"No, it only lasts an hour or until it is killed, like this", he pointed at the pig and cast chromatic orb. A ball of lightning shot at the pig, electrocuting it, when, with a puff of smoke, it returned to being a seagull. A very confused seagull but a seagull after all. The crewmen quickly got back to their positions, meanwhile Renly was just watching the waves. The sea was fascinating. Even on earth, they hadn't visited even ten percent of the ocean and that was with submarines. What things lived down beneath the waves here? The dragons might be dead but were there seadragons, somewhere beneath the surface? He knew for sure that there were krakens but what else was down there? Then, he saw it, the merest glimpse of something hiding beneath the waves, a scaly back of something huge, just below the surface.
"Did you see that?" Renly looked to Ryu, who silently nodded.
"But what could it have been?", asked a crewmate, "Krakens don't live this far east, they live in the sunset sea and we are at the stepstones"
"It be seadragons I say", another crewmate said.
"Don't be silly, seadragons don't exist", Ryu scolded the guy who had suggested it.
"I could…" Renly looked past the waves, he could transform and look what it was but… no, too dangerous. What if it truly was a seadragon? He would be eaten within minutes and he wasn't sure he had the firepower to blast his way out of a seadragon's stomach. These beasts were only rumored to exist, how would he even know what kind of damage worked against them?, "Whatever it was, it hasn't attacked us, so let's hope it stays that way and move on"
For the rest of the journey through the stepstones, the crew was on high alert but they never spotted whatever that was again, only water and fish. The crew fished every day to get some fresh meat, a freshly caught fish was nice once in a while. The cooks they had taken with them were able to create some wonderful dishes with the fish. Tyrosh came into view soon, the huge city with its walls of black dragonstone loomed over them as they entered the harbor, which was overlooked by the bleeding tower, a huge structure made entirely of dragonstone, the cracks in it showing a blood red color within.
"Now crew, we have a week to stay here before we sail on, you can spend your free time how you like. The ship's stock of food will be replenished by our cooks and three of the knights need to stay on the ship at all times, you work in six hour shifts, three per day, you have to be back on the ship when night falls, other than that, you are free to explore"
"Will you need my services?" Asked Ryu, who had come as their translator.
"Not yet. I will find you if I have need of you", Renly said. As the crew left for the city, Renly transformed into a seagull and flew high above the city. There were many slaves bustling in the city, the population of slaves was three times higher than that of free men. He was searching for the Archon's building, which wasn't hard to miss, as the flag of a purple snail hung over each of the councilman's homes and a larger one over the Archon's home. He landed in one of it's windows and transformed into a spider, small and agile, hard to detect. Renly scuttled through the room, it was a bedchamber, currently empty. Squeezing through the door, he found himself in a long hallway with several doors going off it. He looked into the first room, a child's room, though the child in question was nowhere to be found, next he found the kitchen, in which three slave girls were preparing a meal. It smelled like curry back from earth, packed with many spices and herbs. The girls were each early teens, none older than ten and five. One, a girl with valyrian features -silver hair and purple eyes- was walking funny, like one of her legs had been broken and not healed properly. Renly waited for the girls to leave the room, which she did, carrying two plates of curry each towards another room. He followed them, past the hallway, through another corridor and into a large room with a big, round table, seating six people, the councilmembers, each with slaves behind them, unsullied by the looks of them. Behind the Archon -clearly distinguished by his purple robes- stood two who weren't wearing slave collars, a woman with the same Valyrian coloration as the slave girl and a young boy, maybe ten years old, with dark hair, like the Archon's but with the Valyrian eyes. The kid looked bored out of his mind but stood behind his father -or whom he assumed was the boy's father- and listened. They were talking fast, too fast for Renly to understand. He quickly lost interest in this conversation he couldn't understand, only catching a few words. So, he scuttled off, searching for a library. He found it, the door was guarded by two unsullied but they didn't even notice the spider which scuttled under the door. The library was also the vault of the building, which was why the unsullied guarded it. There were coins, gemstones, artifacts and even a few valyrian steel daggers with dragonbone hilts. He took human form again and took one of the valyrian steel daggers before turning to the books. There were a good few dozen books in there, each with it's name written on the spine.
'The valyrian language and it's variants, a helpful guide to understanding others', 'The history of the free city of Tyrosh' and 'Customs of higher society across Essos' were just a few of the titles he saw. He didn't find the book he was looking for. Dejected, he transformed back into a spider and hurried out of the building. Out the window, he flew and towards another councilman's home. One of them was bound to have what he needed. He checked each home carefully, one after the other but in none did he find what he was looking for. He knew that Tyrosh used to be an outpost of Old Valyria, even housing a few dragonlords after the doom before it's citizens had overthrown and killed them but nowhere in the homes of the six most influential men of Tyrosh could he find any information about how to hatch a dragon egg. All he had in his library at Storm's end about that was just that dragon eggs used to be given into the royal cribs and sometimes they hatched but nothing of how to hatch a dragon egg from scratch, which was what he was trying to do. And sadly, neither had he found anything with the councilmen.
He planned to go to Tyrosh, Lys and Volantis, searching for the secret of how to hatch dragon eggs. If he hadn't found the answer in Volantis, he would return to Storm's end and wait for the greyjoy rebellion before he made his way to the debatably most dangerous place in Essos, the Valyrian Freehold. It was a desperate play but he had to hope he would find the answers without walking into those damned ruins. He returned to his ship as the sun began to set and transformed back into his human form out of view of the crew.
As he sat in his chambers on the ship, he took out the valyrian steel dagger he had taken from the Archon. He could feel the magic slumbering within, potent and ready to do… something. Curious, he channeled magic through the blade and -to his surprise- the blade caught on fire, black, ice cold fire, cold to the touch. It didn't hurt when he touched it. As he stared into the flames, he could almost feel something looking back into his soul. Then, as he watched the flames dance, he was no longer on the ship. He was somewhere, somewhere dark. Suddenly, a candle was lit and he saw a ship, much like the one he was in but different, it was a ironborn ship. He saw a man, swinging a blade, red like blood, with distinctive ripples of valyrian steel, then, his vision shifted, to a man he could only assume to be Ned Stark swinging Ice, beheading a criminal but he was older than he should be and that criminal… wasn't that the deserter from the night's watch? What's his name, Will? But that wasn't supposed to happen for many years yet? His vision shifted once more, this time Jon Snow stood in front of commander mormont, being handed longclaw. The visions stopped after that. When he was back at the cabin, he looked at the dagger, there was a tiny, hairline fissure across it's surface, which was slowly repairing itself, knitting back together into an unharmed blade. He tried channeling magic into it again but the metal didn't react, "strange…"
He fell into sleep that day and awoke the next, well rested. He walked through the markets of Tyrosh with Ryu that day, buying exotic fruits for the crew to try. Some he knew from his time on earth, like bananas and some he didn't recognise at all, Serpent's fruit, Onyx apple and many more. He also saw a lot of slave traders, with open auctions, women and men of every age, skin-, eye- and hair-color were being sold. He didn't engage in the auctions but observed them from a distance. Soon, he found himself at the leather worker's stalls and saw a piece of armor, leather armor of exceptional quality.
"I want one of these, dyed yellow and black", he told Ryu, pointing at the armor.
Ryu proceeded to haggle with the vendor so fast Renly couldn't keep up. The price they landed on, including the dyeing was 1 gold dragon and two silver stags. The Tyroshi might have their own money but they still accepted all forms of currency, no trading currency needed. Renly handed over the money and, a good hour later, they had an armor adjusted to his measurements and dyed the colors of house Baratheon.