Chapter 27: The Valyrian Pilgrimage and the Feast of Forgotten Gods
The arrival of Ser Regis, the captive knight offering treacherous intelligence, threw another volatile ingredient into Blood Cove's already simmering cauldron of fear, fanaticism, and burgeoning ambition. Alaric, his divine consciousness sifting through the knight's desperate pronouncements and the subtle emanations of his aura, perceived a core of genuine opportunism and a burning resentment against his former masters. The information Regis offered – details of Lord Stark's war council, the names of wavering Northern lords, potential weaknesses in the supply lines for the inevitable grand army – was tantalizing. But it was also a potential trap, a poisoned chalice.
While Eamon and the Inner Circle debated the knight's fate, subjecting him to Thom's unnerving scrutiny and Elara's deceptively gentle questioning, Alaric was engaged in a far grander, more terrifying calculation. The threat of Lord Stark, backed by the unified North and potentially the Faith of the Seven from the South, was an existential one. His dragons, while now colossal engines of destruction, were still only twelve. His mortal forces, though fanatical, were vastly outnumbered. Even with the Bolton's chillingly ambiguous neutrality, Blood Cove was a small, dark star facing the combined gravitational pull of a galaxy. He needed more. Not just more soldiers or more resources. He needed a fundamental shift in the balance of divine power itself.
Ser Regis's information, particularly his whispers of ancient Valyrian artifacts rumored to be in the possession of certain Northern houses, and the desperate measures some maesters were considering to counter "unnatural forces," inadvertently planted the seed. Valyria. The name echoed in Alaric's divine memory, not just from his past life's lore, but now with a dawning, predatory understanding. Valyria, the fallen empire, the cradle of dragons and sorcery, the source of the very blade – Scalebane – that now amplified his will. A cursed, smoking ruin, yes. But also, potentially, a repository of immense, forgotten power.
"The Warden of the North gathers his strength," Alaric impressed upon Eamon during a deep communion within the Obsidian Eyrie, the twelve colossal dragons stirring restlessly around them, their heat a palpable force. "The Faith screams for our annihilation. Even the Leech Lord of the Dreadfort merely waits for an opportune moment to strike. Our current power, while formidable, is a flickering candle against such a gathering storm. We must become a conflagration. The Sovereign of Scales has shown me… a pilgrimage. A journey to the very heart of ancient power, to the ashes of the Dragonlords, to the place where gods once feasted and now… perhaps… slumber."
Eamon, his body now little more than a conduit for Alaric's will, his eyes reflecting the swirling, internal light of the dragons, trembled. "Valyria, my Sovereign?" he whispered, the name itself tasting of ash and immense, terrifying power.
"Valyria," Alaric confirmed, his divine voice a cold, resonant hum in Eamon's soul. "Its gods are dead, their followers dust. Their divine essences, their accumulated knowledge, their forgotten hoards… they lie dormant, vulnerable. A feast for a god who is hungry, for a god who understands the ultimate transaction. I will go myself. Swiftly. Secretly. And I will return with the power to shatter any army, to unmake any king, to etch the dominion of the Scales across the face of this world."
The decision was absolute, born of a desperate need and a psychopathic god's boundless ambition. To leave Blood Cove, even for a short time, was a risk. But to remain, facing the inevitable onslaught with only his current resources, was a far greater one. He would trust in the fanaticism of his followers, the terror of his reputation, and the chilling neutrality of the Boltons to maintain a fragile peace in his absence. Eamon, empowered by Scalebane and a direct infusion of Alaric's will, would be his regent, his voice, the keeper of the dragons.
Alaric's journey was not one of mortal travel. He did not requisition a ship or gather supplies. Instead, he focused his divine consciousness, drawing upon the vast reserves of purified soul-energy from the Soul-Forge and the ambient power of his now-colossal dragons. He wove a temporary vessel for his essence, not of flesh and blood, but of shadow, storm-wrack, and concentrated divine will – a fleeting, man-shaped vortex of dark energy, barely visible to mortal eyes, capable of traversing immense distances with the speed of thought, or a particularly malevolent gust of wind. He impressed upon Eamon that he would be "indisposed" for a short period, his direct guidance lessened, but his ultimate return assured and glorious.
Then, with a final surge of will that left Blood Cove momentarily feeling colder, emptier, he launched his shadowy avatar south, across the churning seas, towards the accursed, smoking peninsula of Valyria. The journey itself was a testament to his burgeoning godhood. He passed through the Smoking Sea, its waters boiling, its air thick with ash and poisonous fumes, as an unconcerned phantom. The rumored demons and twisted fire-wyrms that haunted the ruins either did not perceive his non-corporeal form or shied away from the sheer, cold intensity of his divine aura. He moved through the skeletal, glass-slicked cities of Old Valyria like a whisper, his senses, amplified to an unimaginable degree, sifting through the layers of devastation, seeking not just treasure, but the lingering echoes of divine power.
He found them. Not in grand, celestial palaces, but in shattered, buried temples, in forgotten catacombs beneath melted sphinxes, in the very heart of obsidian mountains that still pulsed with a faint, residual heat. The gods of Old Valyria – the fiery Balerion, the shadowy Meraxes, the enigmatic Vhagar (names he knew from lore, now feeling their faint, dying signatures) – were not truly dead, but dormant, their divine essences faded to mere embers after centuries without worshippers, their power diffused, their consciousnesses fragmented into little more than lingering psychic residue, trapped within their desecrated sanctums. They were like dying stars, still radiating a faint, ancient power, but vulnerable, exposed.
For Alaric, this was not a moment for reverence or pity. It was a feeding.
His shadowy avatar, now coalescing into a more defined, terrible form within these forgotten holy places, began the process of "devouring." He did not engage in celestial combat. There was nothing left to fight. Instead, he systematically, ruthlessly, absorbed their fading divine essences. It was like drinking ancient, incredibly potent wine, each draught sending shivers of power through his being. He felt their memories, fragmented and dream-like, flood his consciousness – visions of dragon-lords soaring on colossal beasts, of impossible cities built with fire and blood, of arcane rituals and sorceries that had shattered the known laws of magic, of the hubris that had led to the Doom. He sifted through these memories, discarding the dross, absorbing the knowledge, integrating the raw power into his own divine matrix.
With each Valyrian god-fragment he consumed, his own divinity expanded, deepened, became more ancient, more complex. He felt his understanding of magic, of soul-manipulation, of the very fabric of reality, increase tenfold. He learned the true names of power, the forgotten Valyrian glyphs that could command the elements, the secrets of forging Valyrian steel not just as a metal, but as a conduit for will. He even glimpsed the horrifying, chaotic truth behind the Doom itself, a cataclysm born not just of volcanic fury, but of a magical civil war, of gods turning upon gods, of sorceries so potent they had torn a hole in the world.
The number of "souls" he absorbed was not in the conventional sense of individual mortal spirits, but rather the collective, faded psychic imprints of millennia of Valyrian worshippers, their devotion still clinging like dust to the dying embers of their gods. This vast, ancient reservoir of belief, now channeled into Alaric, was a power source beyond anything he had yet encountered. His Grand Repository swelled, its shadowy architecture now infused with the intricate, obsidian beauty of Valyrian design, its depths echoing with the faint, ghostly songs of a lost empire.
When the last Valyrian god-ember was extinguished, absorbed into his being, Alaric stood transformed. His shadowy avatar now pulsed with an almost unbearable intensity, its form hinting at something far older, far more terrible than the mere merchant-god who had arrived. He was sated, engorged with the divine power and forgotten knowledge of an entire fallen pantheon.
And then, he began to scavenge.
Empowered beyond his wildest dreams, his senses now capable of perceiving the faintest traces of magic, the densest concentrations of wealth, Alaric swept through the ruins of Valyria like a divine hurricane. This was no mere looting expedition; it was a systematic, divinely efficient harvesting of an entire dead civilization's treasures.
He located hidden vaults, untouched by the Doom, their ancient wards crumbling before his focused will. Within, he found mountains of gold from the mines of the Fourteen Flames, chests overflowing with gemstones of impossible size and brilliance – rubies like frozen fire, sapphires like captured stars, diamonds that pulsed with their own internal light. He found armories filled with Valyrian steel weapons – not just longswords, but daggers, spearheads, even suits of exquisitely crafted Valyrian plate armor, all still imbued with their deadly sharpness and subtle enchantments. He found libraries, their scrolls and codices miraculously preserved in magically sealed chambers, containing the lost lore of Valyrian sorcery, dragon-breeding, alchemy, and history.
Most importantly, he found dragon eggs. Not just a few, but clutches upon clutches of them, hidden in forgotten hatcheries deep beneath the earth, preserved by the lingering geothermal heat and ancient Valyrian magic. There were dozens, perhaps scores, of all colors and sizes, from the familiar hues he had already hatched to new, exotic shades – eggs of pure, beaten gold, of swirling silver and amethyst, of night-black streaked with veins of molten magma. The sheer number was staggering, enough to repopulate the skies of the world with dragons ten times over.
Alaric did not laboriously carry these treasures. His divine will was his instrument. He opened temporary rifts in reality, small, localized tears leading directly into pocket dimensions within his Grand Repository. Gold, gems, weapons, scrolls, and crate after crate of dragon eggs vanished from Valyria, reappearing moments later within the secure, shadowy confines of his divine realm, meticulously cataloged and stored by the "Praetorian Souls" of his most loyal deceased followers, who now acted as his eternal archivists and quartermasters. He stripped Valyria bare of anything of tangible or magical value, a feat that would have taken mortal armies centuries, accomplished by a single, predatory god in a matter of days. The sheer scale of the plunder was beyond comprehension, a king's ransom a thousand times over, a treasure trove that could reshape the destiny of nations.
When he was done, the ruins of Valyria felt… emptier. Not just physically plundered, but spiritually hollowed out, its last vestiges of divine power and ancient magic now residing within him.
His return to Blood Cove was as swift and silent as his departure. His shadowy avatar dissolved back into his core divine consciousness, which had remained anchored, however tenuously, to the Obsidian Eyrie. But the change in him was palpable, even to the cultists who knew nothing of his pilgrimage. The very air around the Vault seemed to crackle with a new, almost unbearable intensity. Eamon, when Alaric next communed with him, felt as if he were standing before not just a god, but an entire pantheon, an ancient, terrifying power that resonated with the echoes of a fallen empire.
Alaric did not immediately reveal the full extent of his gains. The knowledge of so many new dragon eggs, of such unimaginable wealth and arcane lore, would be too much for even his fanatical followers to process. He allowed Eamon to "discover" a new, miraculously expanded section of the Obsidian Eyrie, a vast, geothermally heated cavern system that Alaric had shaped with his new power, perfect for housing and hatching the new clutches of eggs. He then "revealed" to Eamon, through a series of overwhelming visions, the existence of a "sacred Valyrian hoard" that the Whisperer had "claimed" and would now "bestow" upon His chosen people as needed.
The first tangible sign of this new power was directed towards his existing twelve dragons. Drawing upon the purified soul-energy from the Soul-Forge, now massively augmented by the absorbed Valyrian divine essences and his newfound knowledge of dragon-lore, Alaric initiated another, even more potent, phase of accelerated growth. The twelve "Castle-sized" dragons underwent a further, terrifying transformation. Their bodies swelled to truly colossal proportions, each one now easily rivaling the largest dragons of Valyrian legend – Balerion the Black Dread would have looked upon them as peers. Their scales became as hard as diamond, their fiery breath a focused, controllable inferno capable of melting fortifications to slag in moments. Their intelligence sharpened further, their connection to Alaric becoming almost telepathic, their loyalty absolute. They were no longer just beasts of war; they were sentient engines of apocalyptic destruction, each one a living siege weapon, a deterrent against which no mortal army could stand.
The Valyrian steel sword, Scalebane, also changed. Infused with the concentrated Valyrian energies Alaric now commanded, its dark blade seemed to shimmer with captured starlight, its power resonating in perfect harmony with the dragons. Eamon found that his ability to guide the colossal beasts through the sword was now almost effortless, their minds linked as one.
With this new, almost unimaginable power at his command, Alaric turned his gaze back to the looming threats. Lord Stark's army, the Faith's crusade, the Bolton's shadowy maneuvering, Melisandre's fiery challenge – they still existed. But the scales of the game had just been irrevocably, terrifyingly, rebalanced.
The chapter concluded with Alaric, his divine consciousness now a vast, complex tapestry woven from his original predatory nature, the consumed essences of forgotten gods, and the arcane knowledge of a fallen empire, contemplating his next move. He possessed the power to annihilate his enemies utterly, to reshape the North, perhaps the entire world, in his image. But raw power alone was not enough. He needed strategy, cunning, and a clear understanding of the new, even greater game he was now playing. The feast of forgotten gods was over. The true reign of The Sovereign of Scales, the Dragon God of Blood Cove, was about to begin, and Westeros would soon learn the true meaning of a balanced, and utterly terrifying, ledger.