My collection of some ideas floting around some are unfinished81.31%

The Serpent on the Hook

252 AC, 10th Moon

The fever broke like a hostile takeover. One moment, there was chaos—a maelstrom of disjointed memories, burning heat, and the dull, persistent drumbeat of a failing enterprise. The next, there was only the cold, stark clarity of a successful acquisition. He lay still, eyes closed, not in confusion, but in assessment. The process was familiar, a corporate integration on a biological scale. The memories of his predecessor, a boy named Lycoris Pyralis, were the legacy data of a mismanaged, failing subsidiary. They were being sorted, cataloged, and archived by a far superior operating system: his own.

His name—his real name—was irrelevant now, a ghost from a world of steel towers and fiber-optic cables. He had been a CEO, a titan of industry who built an empire on hostile mergers and ruthless efficiency. His death had been a lesson in risk management: a subordinate he'd underestimated, a private jet, and a sudden, explosive decompression over the Atlantic. A failure to properly liquidate a threatening asset. He felt no grief, no lingering attachment to that life. It was a closed account, a finalized balance sheet. This… this was an unexpected, high-risk, high-reward investment in an emerging market.

He opened his eyes. The room came into focus: rough-hewn stone walls, dark timber beams overhead, and a heavy tapestry depicting some forgotten, dreary battle. A four-poster bed, the linens damp with sweat. He was young. He could feel it in the effortless way his lungs drew breath, in the latent strength coiled in his limbs beneath the fever's lingering weakness. He ran a diagnostic. The physical plant—this new body—was approximately sixteen years of age, fundamentally sound despite the recent illness. A prime asset.

The legacy data of Lycoris Pyralis was a pathetic file. A minor lordling of a newly-minted house, granted a sliver of land on Massey's Hook for some forgotten service his father rendered the Crown. A sickly, timid boy, prone to fevers and melancholy, who had finally succumbed to the latest illness. A non-entity. Valerius purged the boy's personality like corrupted data, keeping only the functional knowledge: language, customs, faces, names. It was local software, essential for navigating the new user interface.

Then there was the other data packet, the one that had arrived with his own consciousness. It was his most valuable proprietary intelligence, the ultimate market research. Full, complete knowledge of the history of this world, from Aegon's Conquest to the coming winter. He knew of the wars to come, the fall of dynasties, the players major and minor. He knew of the Targaryen obsession with dragons , the coming madness of King Aerys II , the rebellion that would place a Baratheon on the throne, and the great game that would follow. He possessed a detailed timeline of the next fifty years. It was like being handed the stock market reports for the next half-century. The potential for profit was… staggering.

And then he felt it. Not a memory, but a current, a live feed of raw power humming within him. He focused inward, past the biological, into something elemental. It was there, partitioned and waiting. Fire. Air. Water. Earth. The board of directors of reality itself, and he was the chairman. A cold, genuine smile—the kind he reserved for closing a deal that would bankrupt a competitor—touched his lips for the first time in this new life. This wasn't just an investment. It was a market monopoly granted by God. And he knew, with the chilling certainty of a predator, exactly how to leverage it.

He dismissed the maester, a fussy, graying man named Kaelan, with a practiced air of weary gratitude. The performance was flawless: the weak but thankful lord, grateful for his servant's diligence. It was a mask he had worn a thousand times in boardrooms and shareholder meetings, a tool for managing expectations and disarming scrutiny. The moment the heavy oak door closed, the mask dropped.

Valerius rose from the bed, his movements deliberate. He ignored the fine clothes laid out for him and instead donned a simple woolen tunic and breeches, the kind a common man might wear. This was not a social call; it was a site inspection. His keep, he recalled from Lycoris's memories, was named Pyralis Point. A grim, functional fortress of dark, salt-streaked stone perched on the very tip of Massey's Hook, the wind-battered peninsula that formed the eastern claw of Blackwater Bay. It was a third-rate holding in a fourth-rate region, but its isolation was its greatest asset.

He walked the halls, his senses expanding. He felt the chill drafts whistling through poorly sealed window frames—a waste of energy. He saw the faint sheen of damp on the lower walls—poor drainage. He noted the inefficient layout of the kitchens and the barracks. The entire operation was bleeding resources. It was a fixer-upper, but the foundations were solid. Massey's Hook was a land of rocky shores and hardy folk, historically part of the Stormlands but now a direct vassal of the Crown, caught in the political orbit of Dragonstone. It was considered poor, with little to offer but stone and fish, a perception he would cultivate assiduously.

His tour ended at a small, postern gate that led to a winding path down the cliff face. The sea air was sharp and cold, tasting of salt and brine. Far below, the waves of the narrow sea crashed against black, jagged rocks. He found what he was looking for: a narrow fissure, almost invisible from above, that led into the cliff itself. A sea-cave, known only to Lycoris as a place to brood. For Valerius, it was a laboratory.

Inside, the air was cool and still. The only light was a faint, blue-green luminescence filtering through the water that pooled at the cave's entrance. He closed his eyes, shutting down the external world and focusing on the power within. Research and Development, Phase One.

He started with Earth. He reached out with his senses, not his hands. The stone of the cave was no longer inert; it was a living tapestry of information. He could feel the pressure, the density, the lines of stress. Deeper, he sensed veins of metal. Iron, plentiful and rich. Tin, in lesser quantities. And deeper still, a faint, thrilling whisper of silver. His lands weren't poor; they were simply undeveloped. He placed a hand on the cave wall. He didn't push; he willed. The stone flowed like thick clay, a narrow tunnel, a meter in diameter, boring silently into the rock. It was perfectly smooth, requiring no shoring. After ten meters, he stopped and reversed the process. The tunnel sealed itself without a seam, leaving no trace. He now had the means to mine his lands from within, without a single pickaxe breaking the surface, without a single surveyor charting his claim. A clandestine, vertical integration of resource extraction.

Next, Water. He turned to the churning pool at the cave mouth. He extended a hand, and a sphere of seawater, a meter across, lifted into the air, silent and shimmering. He focused, feeling the impurities within it—the salt, the grit, the microscopic life. He willed them to separate. The salt crystallized and fell to the floor in a fine white powder, and the now-pure water hung in the air, clear as glass. Desalination. The logistical implications were immense. A ship equipped with such an ability could stay at sea indefinitely. A besieged castle would never run dry. He let the water fall, then pricked his palm with a sharp stone. A thin line of red welled up. He dipped his hand into the saltwater, focusing again, not on the water itself, but on the water within his own blood. He felt the cells knit, the skin seal. The wound vanished, leaving not even a scar. Healing. A powerful tool, but one that invited questions and dependence. To be used sparingly, and never in public. Then, he looked at a small fish trapped in a rock pool. He reached out with that same sense, targeting the blood within its tiny body. The fish froze, then contorted, its movements perfectly mirroring the subtle clenching of his fist. Absolute control. He released it, and it darted away. Bloodbending. A Tier-1 interrogation and assassination tool. Its existence was to be his most closely guarded secret.

Fire. He held out his palm and summoned a flame. It was not the flickering, wasteful flame of a torch. It was a tight, white-hot jet of pure heat, silent and intense. He could feel its temperature, adjusting it with a thought from a gentle warmth to a heat that could melt steel. This was not just a weapon; it was a forge, a furnace, a tool of industry that would make the smiths of Qohor look like clumsy apprentices. Then, he looked out the cave's mouth toward a lone rock spire a hundred yards out at sea. He drew in the air, feeling the energy build, the crackle of static in the air. He thrust his fingers forward. A bolt of pure lightning, blindingly bright, erupted from his hand and struck the spire, shattering its peak into a thousand pieces. The thunderclap echoed a second later. Conspicuous. Powerful, yes, but far too loud. A weapon of last resort.

Finally, Air. He stood and breathed in, feeling the currents in the cave, the subtle shifts in pressure. He expanded his senses, pushing them out of the cave, up the cliff face. He could hear the crunch of a guard's boots on the parapet above, the muttered complaint about the cold, the distant cry of a gull. Enhanced senses, perfect for surveillance. Then he did what he knew was possible, but felt the most… ostentatious. He bent his knees and leaped, but instead of falling, he pushed against the air beneath him. He rose. He hovered a few feet off the cave floor, the sensation of weightlessness both exhilarating and deeply unnatural. Flight. The ultimate tool for mobility, for reconnaissance, for escape. And the single most impossible power to hide. He let himself drift back to the ground.

He stood for a long moment in the quiet dark, cataloging his assets. Earth for wealth. Water for logistics and sanitation. Fire for industry. Air for information. And all of them, in their cruder forms, for war. But war was a chaotic, unpredictable, and often unprofitable venture. A tool for barbarians and kings. He was a businessman. He would use these powers not to conquer, but to build. To create an economic engine so powerful, so self-sufficient, and so discreet that no one would even realize it existed until he owned the entire market. Secrecy was not just a preference; it was the cornerstone of his entire corporate strategy.

"The fever seems to have… affected your memory of recent affairs, my lord," Maester Kaelan said, his voice laced with cautious concern. They sat in the lord's solar, a sparse room with a large driftwood desk and a single, salt-stained window overlooking the bay. Valerius had summoned him under the guise of a post-recovery check-up.

"Fragments remain, Maester," Valerius replied, his voice intentionally a little weak. He leaned back in his chair, a picture of convalescent fragility. "But the larger shape of the world feels… distant. Humor an old man in a young man's body. Refresh my understanding. The King… Aegon, is it?" It was a masterclass in manipulation, feigning weakness to extract undiluted intelligence. He needed to know not just the facts he already possessed, but the local sentiment attached to them.

Kaelan visibly relaxed, falling into his familiar role as tutor. "King Aegon, the Fifth of His Name, yes, my lord. Though many of the older lords still mutter about his ascension. 'Aegon the Unlikely,' they call him. Fourth son of a fourth son, chosen by the Great Council over others with better claims". The maester's tone was dry, but Valerius detected a faint note of disapproval, the ingrained conservatism of the Citadel.

"And his reign?" Valerius prompted gently. "Is it a peaceful one?"

Kaelan hesitated, choosing his words with care. "His Grace is… well-intentioned. He spent his youth wandering the Seven Kingdoms with a hedge knight, and it seems to have given him a certain… sympathy for the smallfolk." The maester made 'sympathy' sound like a disease. "He has enacted numerous reforms, granting rights and protections to the commons. Each one, however, has been met with fierce opposition from the great houses. They say he is a tyrant, intent on stripping them of their gods-given liberties".

This confirmed everything Valerius knew. Aegon V was a good man, a compassionate king, and therefore, a terrible politician in this world. His idealism created instability, and instability created opportunity. "Which lords are most… displeased?"

"All of them, to some degree, my lord. Lord Tytos Lannister is too weak to offer much resistance in the West, but others are not so pliable. The King's own plans for his children have gone awry. He sought to bind the great houses to him through marriage—a sound strategy, uniting the throne with the Baratheons, the Tullys, the Tyrells, and the Redwynes".

"A sound strategy," Valerius agreed, his mind flashing to a dozen similar deals he'd brokered. Alliances sealed with stock swaps and board seats.

"But his children refused," Kaelan sighed, shaking his head. "The heir, Prince Duncan, cast aside his betrothal to Lord Baratheon's daughter for some strange woman of the woods they call Jenny of Oldstones. He even renounced his claim to the throne for her. And the younger children, Prince Jaehaerys and Princess Shaera, eloped and married each other in secret. Lord Baratheon was so incensed he briefly declared himself Storm King again. It took Ser Duncan the Tall himself—the very hedge knight the King squired for, now Lord Commander of the Kingsguard—to quell the rebellion".

Valerius filed the information away. The political landscape was exactly as chaotic as his foreknowledge suggested. The Targaryen monarchy was alienating its most powerful vassals, eroding its own power base long before the tragedy at Summerhall would gut it. He was operating in a market ripe for disruption, where the ruling body was actively sabotaging itself.

"And our own house, Maester? What is our standing?"

"We are a minor house, my lord. Sworn directly to the Crown, but our lands are small. Your father, Lord Vorian, was granted this land and title for his service in the last Blackfyre Rebellion. We have little wealth and few men. Our neighbors, House Massey of Stonedance and House Bar Emmon of Sharp Point, are ancient houses of First Men and Andal stock, respectively. They hold us in little regard".

"Poverty is a temporary cash-flow problem, Maester. Not a permanent state of being." Valerius said it with such casual confidence that Kaelan blinked.

Later, he met with his Master-at-Arms, Ser Gregor Stone. He was a bull of a man, with a broken nose and hard, steady eyes. A landless knight sworn to Valerius's father, he was the sum total of House Pyralis's military command.

"How many men can we field, Ser?" Valerius asked, standing with him on the battlements.

"A dozen men-at-arms, my lord. Another thirty from the village if we must, but they're fishermen with spears, not soldiers. We have stone walls. That is our strength."

Valerius looked at the man. Loyal, competent within his narrow purview, but utterly lacking in imagination. A perfect Head of Security. He would follow orders, and that was all that was required. Valerius already had a vision for a new kind of soldier, armed with steel that wouldn't break and trained in methods this world had never seen. But that was a future project. For now, he needed to understand his current assets. He spent the rest of the day with his steward, a nervous man named Pate, going over the house ledgers. The picture was grim. The house was in debt to the Iron Bank of Braavos, a small but significant sum. Its income from fishing tariffs and meager crops was barely enough to maintain the keep, let alone pay the interest. Lycoris's father had been a soldier, not a businessman. He had won the land but had no idea how to make it profitable.

Valerius saw it all not as a problem, but as a baseline. A starting point from which to measure his inevitable, exponential growth.

That night, Valerius sat alone in the solar. The wind howled outside, a familiar storm battering the coast of Massey's Hook. The pathetic ledgers lay discarded on his desk. On a fresh sheet of parchment, he began to sketch out the framework of his new enterprise. He did not think in terms of lordship and fealty; he thought in terms of assets, liabilities, opportunities, and threats.

His mind constructed the plan, not as a list of desires, but as a cold, logical prospectus.

|---|---|---|---|

| Elemental Abilities ("The Tech") | Proprietary Asset | Infinite ROI | Clandestine development only. Prioritize economic applications (mining, agriculture, manufacturing) over overt military use. Maintain absolute secrecy. |

| Domain: Massey's Hook | Undeveloped Asset | High Potential | Geographically ideal for secrecy. Low baseline makes improvements appear miraculous. Exploit weak regional identity to build personal loyalty. |

| Political Climate (Aegon V) | Strategic Opportunity | Medium-Term | Publicly support King's reforms to gain political cover and be underestimated by rivals. True loyalty is to profit, not the Crown. |

| Targaryen Dynasty | Systemic Risk | High (7-Year Horizon) | Monitor instability. Prepare for the Summerhall event (259 AC) and the subsequent decline. Avoid all Targaryen entanglements. Position to profit from the chaos of Robert's Rebellion (282 AC). |

This was his framework. From it, the five-year plan flowed with crystalline logic.

Phase 1: Consolidation & Stealth Infrastructure (Year 1-2). The immediate priority was self-sufficiency and the establishment of a secure, untraceable revenue stream. He would use waterbending to create a series of hidden underground cisterns and irrigation channels. Crop yields would triple within a year. The smallfolk would call it a blessing from the gods; he would log it as a 300% increase in agricultural output. Simultaneously, he would use earthbending to excavate the iron and silver deposits deep within the peninsula. The ore would be brought to the surface through a single, hidden shaft inside the keep itself. With fire- and metalbending, he would construct a subterranean forge, a blast furnace of impossible efficiency, producing steel of a quality and quantity this world had never seen. The first products would be advanced agricultural tools—plows, scythes, hoes—to further boost food production. The surplus grain and high-grade steel would be his first products for export. To move them, he would need a port. Using earth and water, he would carve a new cove from the cliffside, shielded from the narrow sea's storms and invisible to any passing ship—a private, deep-water harbor.

Phase 2: Human Capital & Security (Year 2-4). With wealth comes envy. He needed loyalty and security. The increased food and income would be reinvested directly into his population. He would build new, sturdy stone houses for the villagers, replacing their hovels. He would ensure they were well-fed and clothed. He would act as their healer, using waterbending discreetly to cure infections, set bones, and purify water, eradicating the common sicknesses that plagued medieval life. This was not charity; it was asset maintenance. A healthy, happy workforce is a productive workforce. Their loyalty would be transferred from distant kings and abstract gods to him, their direct and tangible benefactor. He would then hand-select the ten most promising young men from the village and form the core of his new household guard. They would be armed with his superior steel and trained in brutal, efficient combat techniques. They would be his Praetorians, loyal only to him.

Phase 3: Market Entry & Political Hedging (Year 4-5). With his infrastructure in place and his home base secure, he would enter the global market. His hidden port would become a hub for smugglers and discreet merchants from Braavos and Pentos. He would sell his surplus grain and steel for gold, building a secret fortune that the Iron Throne could never tax because it would never know it existed. This wealth would buy spies, information, and influence. Publicly, he would remain Lord Pyralis, the quiet, unassuming ruler of a poor spit of land. He would pay his taxes to the Crown on time, and perhaps even send a "gift" of grain to the North during the next harsh winter, a gesture he knew from his reading would earn the gratitude of the Starks and the notice of King Aegon. He would be seen as a loyal, if somewhat eccentric, supporter of the King's pro-smallfolk reforms. A harmless fool.

He looked out the window at the dark, churning sea. The game of thrones was for peacocks and fools, a mad scramble for a chair made of swords. He had no interest in that game. He was playing a different one entirely, a game of numbers, resources, and logistics. His goal was not the Iron Throne. His goal was to build a self-sustaining, technologically advanced, and monstrously wealthy corporate state under the very noses of the feudal lords of Westeros. He would make his serpent-sigiled house so rich that one day, the Iron Throne would come to him for a loan. And like any good banker, he would ensure the terms were entirely in his favor.

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