Chapter 60: Citadel
"Seriously? Giants are still alive?" Gerion exclaimed, while taking a sip of wine.
"Absolutely. I was North of the wall before starting this journey. They have a whole tribe living there. Not just that, they ride giant mammoths. But they still can\'t break the wall," Alexander said.
For some reason, Cercei took a sigh of relief. She mostly disdained the northerners and thought of them as barbarians but even she accepted that they protected the rest of the realm from wildlings and now these Giants. The wall was a blessing.
"Hahaha... I might really have to make a trip there then." Gerion laughed.
Tyrion felt jealous of his uncle. He also wanted to grow quickly and go on adventures.
"Well, if you go there, go to Jormun\'s tribe. We have good relations with them," Alexander advised.
"If I remember correctly, I still have a long tooth of a winter lion. They are very huge and have long teeth," Alexander added while looking into his pouch.
He took out a big tooth, "The poor guy attacked me. I took his tooth and let him go away."He said and gave it to Tyrion. "Here, you can keep it, son"
Tyrion was very surprised but none the less happy, "T-Thank you, Lord Stark"
"Haha... Call me grandpa, you are still too young to do lord this and that," Alexander joked and ruffled his hair.
Except Tywin and Cercei, everyone looked happy seeing the smiling Tyrion.
After dinner, he retired to his allocated room. At midnight, he turned himself invisible and cast a silent charm. He also put a fake body in the bed.
His stop was the mines under the castle. The castle was seriously huge and the cliff on which it was situated was supposed to be even taller than the wall. No wonder their gold never seems to ever end.
[You can see the Casterly Rock on Illustration channel of my Discord - .gg/DgHkrAn
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Alexander entered the underground mines and surveyed them. He was surprised to find the lack of men working. His final conclusion was that the Lannisters were going broke. Their gold would probably last another ten years.
Let\'s make that 8 as Alexander helped them a bit. He was going to give the money to Iron bank and then loan it back to Lannisters. 6000 years of mining finally made the golden lion rust. He was aware of the Lannister pride so Tywin would surely take loans from Iron bank in the future.
...
The next day, he left for the Oldtown. He felt quite happy that he came to Casterly Rock as Tyrion really liked him now. The boy was even shouting goodbye from the castle till they disappeared from his vision.
His next stop was Highgarden. He personally didn\'t like them. They were cowards and opportunists and still acted like brave men. On top of that, their family was messed up too. Only the old Olenna Tyrell had some brain. Her son, Mace Tyrell, Lord of the Highgarden had a walnut for a brain, Mace\'s son, eldest Willas got his legs injured because he was forced to participate in a tourney at a young age.
Alexander also bypassed Highgarden and went straight to Oldtown. He didn\'t have time to waste on fools. Reach might be the one selling food to the North, for now, that too at a higher price. But that was going to change soon. 2 more months and the harvest begins. We\'ll see what the Tyrells will do with their extra food then.
Oldtown was a very big and the oldest city in Westeros. The seat of the House Hightower and Citadel headquarters. The buildings were connected with various bridges over the river. Making it a giant hub of knowledge.
Alexander straight up headed to the main building and asked for a meeting with the Conclave. Surprisingly, they agreed. Now he didn\'t have to go and find each of them. But he also had to wait for a week.
He just booked a room in a high-end inn for a month and locked himself up. Then he apparated to Winterfell to play with Rina. He really missed her.
Behind the scenes, Alexander had told Dobby to send a box of Firewhiskey to every great house in Westeros. They have already started receiving many more orders since then.
A week later, an acolyte came to him to inform him of the meeting. Alexander went on time and knocked on the door.
"Lord Stark, It\'s a pleasure to meet you. Please take a seat," An arch Maester said.
"Can you tell us the purpose of your visit." An arch maester who had mastery in mathematics spoke.
"Ah, yes yes... I wanted to see if all I\'ve learned in my life is enough to earn me some links here. I want you all to ask me any questions and If I can\'t answer, I\'ll donate a hundred gold dragons to each wrong answer. If I can answer all of you, then I want you to give me unrestricted access to all parts of the citadel." He said. His claim was arrogant but the conclave was more greedy.
"Why are you doing this, Lord Stark?" One of them asked.
"Because I\'m bored," he said nonchalantly.
The arch Maesters felt disgraced so they decided to accept the offer and show this lord his place.
The first to question was the Arch Maester of healing. He asked some dumb questions about the human body and how to treat some diseases. Then he asked how to treat greyscale, thinking that Alexander would not have an answer. But Alexander gave him a full method of how to perform surgery on the skin, remove it and also heal it.
"But there\'s no proof that it will succeed." Arch Maester retorted.
"There are thousands of written healing methods to treat greyscale and none of them guarantee. Don\'t ask questions whose answer you don\'t know," Alexander replied. Shutting the guy up.
Then it was the Arch Maester of astrology and stuff. As expected he answered flawlessly and also gave some more knowledge to them. The same was repeated with the others. They had shocked faces by the end of the meeting.
They all were older than him but he had more knowledge than all of them combined. While they all were frowning and regretting accepting Alexander\'s offer. They were all going through a mind search by Alexander.
Most of them were sinners. Planning and plotting was a normal thing. Their main agenda was to keep making the Lords of Westeros feel a requirement to have a maester. For example, they were the only people who knew ravenry. On top of that, the education was so unpromoted that many lords directly allowed their Maesters to read letters for them as the lords didn\'t know how to.
They also liked little children, they were easy to scare and control, hence the best targets for old men. Well, he was also going to castrate them. 3 of them deserved death and the rest deserved time torture. Even Arch Maester Marwyn had dabbed in some blood rituals during his travels in Assahi. But he also found an interesting thing about him.
He swiftly gave them Time Torture and made them loyal to him. These men were no good left alone. Killing them would be a waste before they passed on their knowledge. Those who didn\'t deserve to die were compelled to sign a magic contract.
...
Arch Maester Marwyn was an old man who had spent his whole life in search and study of higher powers like magic.
There was also a reason for his drive to learn magic. There was a time when he had a happy family. He had a wife and a lovely daughter. The problem came when he found out that his daughter had a bone disease. Her bones were growing weak and soon she won\'t be able to walk.
He asked many healers. Many ignored him and those that did help him said that she was untreatable. That\'s when he turned to magic. He had heard that there was magic in the east that could do miracles. So, he left all his savings to his family and went away.
He was disappointed though. He found out that most of the magic he could learn there was for doing bad things. But he still didn\'t give up and kept on learning and experimenting. When he again found himself lost, he decided to go to Oldtown and search in the biggest library in the world.
To read the most secret books he had to rise up in the ranks and become an Arch Maester. However, disappointment was what he found there too. There was no book that had knowledge of magical healing in it.
He wanted to go home and see his precious daughter again but decided against it. The pay of an arch Maester was good, also, his wife and daughter were a secret. He could make his wife and daughter\'s life better this way too. His daughter had also grown past her marriage age so he had to take care of her or at least leave enough money behind.
But here he was. Sitting in front of probably the most knowledgeable person alive. He had also asked some easy questions about magic but surprisingly he received an answer even better than he expected. It was like the man really knew how to do it.
Then he felt a slight magical aura in the man. He could feel that it was suppressed. Normal people could not feel it, but he could.
To him, Alexander looked like a ray of light in his moment of hopelessness. His suspicion was confirmed when he saw other Arch Maesters agree to his terms. There was also that contract the he made everyone except him sign.
~I need to talk to him, alone~ he thought.
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