Chapter 6: The Westerosi Gambit

Chapter 6: The Westerosi Gambit

Fame, Valerius discovered, was a double-edged sword. The successful extraction of an Archon's daughter from a fortified island had made the Unseen the most talked-about mercenary outfit in the Disputed Lands. Their name was now uttered in the same breath as the Second Sons or the Stormcrows, not with the same history, but with a unique mystique. They were not a blunt instrument of war; they were a scalpel, capable of surgical strikes that left their rivals bewildered and their clients triumphant.

This newfound renown brought a deluge of offers. A Magister from Pentos wanted them to orchestrate the "unfortunate" bankruptcy of a shipping rival. A Lysene spymaster sought their help in acquiring the pillow house secrets of a Volantene Triarch. A consortium of Ibbenese whalers offered a fortune for them to sabotage the fleets of their competitors.

Valerius, now a young man of eighteen, presided over these offers from a large mahogany desk in his private office. The room overlooked the bustling Myrish canal, but its walls were covered with maps of Essos and, increasingly, a meticulously detailed map of Westeros. He, Lyra—now his unquestioned second-in-command—and Jax would spend hours debating the merits and risks of each contract.

"The Pentoshi contract is clean, but shortsighted," Valerius said, tapping the scroll with a finger. "It earns us coin, but makes a powerful enemy for a minor client. The Lysene offer is intriguing, but pillow house politics are a viper's nest. We risk getting bitten for secrets we have no use for."

Lyra, her face now bearing the sharp confidence of a seasoned commander, nodded in agreement. "The Ibbenese are offering the most gold, but it's a direct attack on a major economic power. The blowback could be severe."

Jax, his one good eye scanning the proposals, grunted. "Time was, we'd have taken any of 'em just to eat. Now you sound like a damn merchant's council."

"That's because we are no longer just sellswords, Jax," Valerius countered, his gaze firm. "We are building an enterprise. Every contract must be an investment. It must bring us not just coin, but influence, intelligence, or a strategic advantage. Short-term profit is a fool's game."

It was this long-term vision that guided their expansion. The 'Unseen,' their trading cog, was no longer sufficient. Valerius used their treasury to purchase two more ships: a swift, slender vessel he named 'Whisper' for infiltration and reconnaissance, and a heavy, reinforced carrack dubbed 'Bastion' for transport and defense.

To man them, he needed specialists. His recruitment process was legendarily unorthodox. He found his new ship captain, a man named Silas, not in a tavern but in a debtors' prison. Silas was a Summer Islander, a brilliant navigator who had lost his ship and freedom to a gambling addiction. Valerius paid his debts and offered him a simple choice.

"You can have a bag of gold and drink yourself to death within a year," Valerius told him in the grim prison cell. "Or you can captain my fleet. You will have the finest ships, the best crews, and the freedom of the seas. The only condition is that you will never gamble again. Your sobriety is my collateral."

Silas, a tall man with skin the color of polished teak, looked at the boy—no, the young man—before him. He saw no judgment in Valerius's eyes, only cold, pragmatic calculation. He saw a path back to the only two things he truly loved: the sea and a captain's authority. He accepted without hesitation.

He found his quartermaster, a man named Corvin, working as a scribe for a corrupt guild master, his genius for logistics and numbers completely wasted on fudging ledgers. Valerius offered him a chance to manage a multi-national enterprise with interests in shipping, security, and information brokering. Corvin, a man starved for a genuine challenge, wept with gratitude.

With his organization solidifying, Valerius turned his focus inward, to the vast, untapped power that still lay dormant within him. He had mastered the four elements in his own brutal, efficient way. He could wield Haki with a proficiency that would have impressed the masters of his old world. But the Avatar State, the ultimate fusion of these powers, remained a locked door. He knew that to truly control the world stage, he needed that key.

He chose the 'Whisper' for his attempt, sailing it far out into the Narrow Sea, away from all prying eyes. He stood on the deck, with only a nervous Lyra and a stoic Jax for company. "If I lose control," he told them, his voice grim, "if I become a danger, you know what to do." His contingency was simple: a fast-acting poison Corvin had acquired from a Lysene contact, to be administered by Lyra if he became a mindless beast of destruction. It was a measure of her loyalty that she agreed, her face a pale mask of dread.

He sat cross-legged on the deck, the waves lapping gently against the hull. He began to meditate, not to find spiritual peace, but to open the floodgates. He systematically lowered the mental barriers he had built around each of his powers, allowing the raw energies of fire, water, earth, and air to churn within him. He then reached deeper, for the wellspring of his Haki, the dominant force of his own will. He would not let the Avatar State control him; he would conquer it as he had conquered everything else.

The power surged. His eyes and the tattoos that had faintly appeared on his skin over the years—subtle grey lines tracing the paths of his chi, a side effect of his unique reincarnation—began to glow with a brilliant white light. A dome of pure energy erupted around him, pushing Lyra and Jax back. The wind howled, the sea churned, and the very timbers of the ship groaned in protest.

Inside the storm of his own power, Valerius was drowning. It was not just the raw energy of the elements, but a chaotic flood of sensory information. He could feel every fish in the sea, every cloud in the sky, the tectonic plates shifting deep beneath the ocean floor. And with it came the ghosts of his past life. He saw the glittering skyline of New York, felt the cold weight of his .45, heard the dying gasp of his rivals. He was Nino Volpe, the Fox, a man of concrete and steel. He was Valerius, the Stormbender, a master of flesh and elements. The two identities warred within him, threatening to tear his consciousness apart.

He was losing. The power was too vast, too primal. The face of Nino, old and powerful, sneered at the face of Valerius, young and struggling. Just as he felt his identity beginning to fray, a single, clear image cut through the chaos: his mother, Ilyna, her face etched with worry as she told him to be careful in the shadows.

That image was his anchor. It was not Nino's ambition, nor Valerius's power, but his fierce, possessive need to protect his first and most important asset in this life. It was a singular, simple purpose in a maelstrom of conflicting desires. He clung to it, using it as a focal point. He wasn't Nino. He wasn't the Avatar. He was Valerius, Ilyna's son, the Master of the Unseen.

With a final, guttural roar, he seized control. The storm of energy did not vanish; it coalesced, flowing into him, becoming an extension of his will. The blinding light receded, though his eyes still glowed with a soft, internal luminescence. He stood up, power rolling off him in palpable waves. He could feel the world, but he was not overwhelmed by it. He was its master. He had tamed the Avatar State.

It was in this state of heightened awareness that a new contract, arriving shortly after his return to Myr, felt less like a business proposal and more like a summons from destiny itself. The message was delivered by a Braavosi ship, its seal that of the Iron Bank, but its coded language spoke of a different master: the Sealord of Braavos.

The Sealord, known to have quiet Targaryen sympathies, was growing concerned. The political climate in Westeros was becoming unstable. Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, once the hope of the dynasty, was growing more erratic. King Aerys II was descending deeper into madness. The great houses were restless. The Sealord wanted a neutral party, an Essosi guild with no ties to Westeros, to conduct a thorough intelligence assessment. He wanted to know the true strengths, weaknesses, and intentions of the major players: the Starks, the Baratheons, the Lannisters, the Arryns.

The payment was secondary. The true prize was the information itself. This was Valerius's chance to get a ground-level, unbiased look at the players in the war he knew was coming.

"This is the most dangerous contract we have ever considered," Lyra argued, her voice tight with concern. "We know nothing of Westeros beyond sailors' tales and old maps. We will be completely alone, surrounded by enemies."

"Not entirely," Valerius countered, tapping the worn cover of a history book he'd acquired. "I have a… theoretical understanding of the landscape. But theory must be tested by reality."

Jax was more direct. "What's the goal, Valerius? Why do you care what these Westerosi lords do? Our business is here."

Valerius looked at the map of Westeros, his glowing eyes tracing the borders of the Seven Kingdoms. He finally gave voice to the ambition that had been burning within him for two decades.

"Here? Essos is a morass of squabbling city-states and dying empires. It is a land of merchants and slaves. There is no central power, no throne worth taking. But Westeros…" he swept his hand over the continent, "…Westeros is a single, unified kingdom. It has a structure, a hierarchy, a history of centralized rule. It is a prize. But it is old. Its foundations are rotten. The king is mad, the prince is a fool, and the great lords sharpen their knives in the shadows. A storm is coming to Westeros, the likes of which has not been seen in a century."

He turned to face them, his presence filling the room. "And I have always found that the greatest opportunities are found in the heart of a storm. We are not going to Westeros simply to fulfill a contract. We are going to scout a battlefield. We are going to assess the strength of future enemies… and future allies. We are going to determine how to best profit from the coming chaos."

A stunned silence filled the room. This was no longer about building a security guild. This was about conquest.

Jax stared at him for a long moment, then a slow, wolfish grin spread across his face. "By the gods, boy. You're not just going to get in the game. You plan on flipping the whole damn table over."

The mission was one of pure espionage. Valerius took only his best: Lyra, Roric, and a handful of his most subtle agents. They sailed the 'Whisper' to King's Landing, posing as wealthy Myrish merchants looking to establish new trade routes.

King's Landing was a shock to their senses. It was larger than Myr, but infinitely filthier, a sprawling, stinking city teeming with poverty and desperation. The Red Keep loomed over it all, a symbol of a power that was both absolute and brittle.

They spent months engaged in a delicate dance of intelligence gathering. Lyra, with her chameleon-like ability to adapt, became a favorite of the city's high-born ladies, her Myrish lace and charming gossip a passport into the inner circles of court. Roric, using the guise of a wine-seller, mapped the city's underworld and the loyalties of the City Watch.

Valerius, meanwhile, targeted the heart of the matter. He used his immense wealth to host lavish parties, inviting influential knights, minor lords, and court functionaries. In the guise of a charismatic, slightly naive foreign merchant, he listened. He used his Observation Haki to feel the truth beneath their boasts and flatteries, to sense their fears, their ambitions, their loyalties.

He learned that Robert Baratheon was a charismatic drunk with a deep-seated hatred for Prince Rhaegar. He learned that Tywin Lannister was a cold, calculating predator, sitting in Casterly Rock and waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He learned that Jon Arryn was the quiet fulcrum around which the nascent rebellion was forming, and that Eddard Stark was the honorable, predictable, and therefore vulnerable, heart of the alliance.

His greatest challenge, and his greatest source of information, was the Master of Whisperers himself, Lord Varys. Valerius felt the Spider's web the moment he arrived in the city. He could sense Varys's "little birds" everywhere. Instead of avoiding them, he fed them. He gave them carefully selected, truthful but harmless information about his "business," painting himself as a greedy but ultimately apolitical merchant.

He finally met the man at a court feast. Varys approached him, his powdered hands clasped before him, his smile serene.

"Lord Valerius," Varys said, his voice soft as silk. "A pleasure to finally meet the Myrish merchant who has so captivated our city."

"The pleasure is all mine, Lord Varys," Valerius replied, inclining his head. "One hears so many whispers about your influence."

"I am but a humble servant of the realm," Varys demurred. Mentally, Valerius felt the man's Haki—it was not strong in a combative sense, but it was incredibly subtle and wide-ranging, a net of pure perception cast over the entire city. It was the Haki of a master spy.

"And a fine job you do of it," Valerius said, smiling. "But tell me, as a foreigner, I confess I find your politics… confusing. So much passion over a Targaryen prince and a wolf-maid from the North. Is it truly so serious?"

Varys's eyes, for a fraction of a second, sharpened. He was being tested. "The affairs of the great houses are like the tides, my lord. They seem distant from the shore, but eventually, they wash over us all."

It was a non-answer, but Valerius had felt the spike of calculation behind it. Varys knew exactly how serious it was. He was playing his own game, manipulating the players for a purpose Valerius couldn't yet grasp.

After three months, they had a complete picture, a detailed dossier on the coming war that would be worth a kingdom to the right buyer. They had fulfilled their contract. As they prepared to leave, news, carried on a fast-sailing ship from the Reach, swept through King's Landing.

Rhaegar Targaryen, at the conclusion of the great Tourney at Harrenhal, had ridden past his own wife, Elia Martell, and laid a crown of winter roses in the lap of Lyanna Stark of Winterfell.

A hush fell over the court. Valerius, standing on the balcony of his rented manse overlooking the city, felt the political landscape of Westeros fracture. It was not yet a tremor, but the deep, sickening lurch of the earth before the quake.

This was it. The spark. The incident he had read about all those years ago in another world. The justification Robert Baratheon would use to unleash his fury. The beginning of the end of the Targaryen dynasty.

He looked out at the Red Keep, at the city teeming with ignorance and fear. They had no idea what was coming. But he did. He had the money, the army, the power, and now, the precise knowledge of where and when to strike.

"Set a course for Myr," he told Silas when he returned to the ship. "And send a message to Archon Kelrys in Tyrosh. Tell him I have a business proposal that will reshape the balance of power in the Narrow Sea. The war is about to begin. And we will be ready to sell our services to the highest bidder."

But he knew, deep down, that he would not be a mere seller. In the coming war, kingdoms would be broken, dynasties would fall, and crowns would be up for grabs. He intended to be a buyer.