Chapter 3: The Price of Legends

Chapter 3: The Price of Legends

296 AC, King's Landing

Part I: A Baptism in Venom

The name he had worn in his previous life was a ghost, a whisper of a forgotten dream. It had belonged to a different man, a creature of soft hands and abstract thoughts who had died and been reborn in the filth of this city. That man was gone, his identity scoured away by pain, violence, and the intoxicating flood of stolen power. To cling to his name would be to cling to a weakness he could not afford. Here, in the stinking, subterranean heart of King's Landing, he needed a new name. A name forged in blood and purpose.

He would be Kaelen.

The name came to him in the quiet moments after the basilisk fight, in the upgraded cell Borgo had provided. It was no longer a mere cage; it was a room. Small, windowless, and still smelling of damp earth and despair, but it had a wooden door with a heavy iron bolt, a cot with a straw-stuffed mattress, and a bucket of relatively clean water. These were the wages of a legend in the making. 

He sat on the cot, his body a symphony of alien sensations. The basilisk's essence had not settled within him as the others had. The strength of the brawler and the agility of the thief had been like adding new tools to a familiar workshop. This was different. This was like installing a forge of black magic in the center of it. He felt the creature's primal vitality coursing through him, a cold, reptilian energy that made his human heart feel sluggish and inefficient. His skin had healed with terrifying speed, the burn on his arm leaving behind only a faint, silvery scar that seemed to shimmer in the torchlight.

But the true prize was the venom. It was a part of him now, a secret fire in his blood. He could feel it, a subtle pressure behind his teeth, a latent power he could command. He focused, concentrating on the tip of his finger, and watched as a single, opalescent droplet beaded on his skin. It was beautiful and deadly, a perfect jewel of distilled death. He knew, with an instinct that was not his own, its properties, its potency, its very chemical signature. This was a power far beyond a strong arm or a quick foot. This was a key that could unlock doors no sword could ever breach.

His senses had sharpened to a predatory degree. The constant, oppressive stench of Flea Bottom was no longer a mere miasma; it was a tapestry of information. He could pick out the scent of stale wine on a guard's breath from twenty paces, the coppery tang of blood from a fresh brawl two alleys over, the subtle perfume of a highborn lady trying to mask her presence in the crowd. The low roar of the pit was a language he now understood—the ebb and flow of greed, the sharp spike of fear, the crescendo of bloodlust.

He was Kaelen. And Kaelen was no longer just a man. He was a vessel of accumulating power, a chimera of stolen skills, and now, a monster among men.

Part II: The Business of Monsters

Borgo did not wait long. The day after the basilisk fight, the Pit Master came to his cell himself, his usual brutish demeanor replaced with a kind of greasy reverence. He was a businessman, and he had just witnessed the birth of his most valuable asset. 

"The Chimera," Borgo grunted, the name he'd given Kaelen already feeling inadequate. "That was a fight for the histories. The nobles are still talking about it." He eyed Kaelen with a new caution, as if expecting him to sprout scales and a forked tongue. "They paid well. Very well."

Kaelen remained silent, his gaze cold and steady. He let Borgo fill the silence, a tactic he'd learned from a thousand corporate negotiations in his past life. The first one to speak often lost.

"They want more," Borgo continued, shifting his weight. "More beasts. More spectacle. They're bored of men fighting men. They want monsters." 

"And you want me to be your monster-killer," Kaelen said, his voice flat.

"You're the best there is. The only one. We could make a fortune, you and I. A mountain of gold."

Kaelen allowed a slow, cold smile to touch his lips. "My price has gone up, Borgo."

This was the turning point. He was no longer a slave fighting for scraps. He was a unique commodity, and he would set his own terms. He didn't just demand a larger share of the purse—he demanded half. But coin was only a means to an end. He needed more.

"I want information," Kaelen stated. "Rumors from the city, whispers from the Red Keep. Who comes, who goes. What the great lords are plotting. I want to know everything that happens in this city."

Borgo blinked, taken aback. This was not the demand of a simple pit fighter. "I'm a Pit Master, not a spymaster."

"You have guards who are Gold Cloaks. You have nobles who slum in your audience. You hear things. From now on, you will bring those things to me. That is part of my price."

He also demanded control. Control over his opponents. He would no longer fight whomever Borgo threw at him. He would choose his own harvests. He needed to diversify his portfolio of skills. He needed sellswords from Essos with their strange fighting styles, disgraced knights with their formal training, wildlings with their savage fury. Each kill was a strategic acquisition, a step closer to his goal.

Borgo, trapped between the fear of his new champion and the monumental greed that drove him, had no choice but to agree. The power dynamic had irrevocably shifted. Borgo was still the master of the pit, but Kaelen was now the master of Borgo. He had established his own small, brutal hierarchy in this underground kingdom, a kleptocracy of two where he was the one who plundered.

Part III: Whispers from the Hill

The nobles who had witnessed the basilisk fight were more than just intrigued; they were captivated. In a city ruled by a king who preferred hunting and whoring to governance, and a court mired in petty squabbles, the raw, primal violence of the pit was a potent distraction. Kaelen's victory was a story, a dark and thrilling legend whispered in the perfumed halls of the Red Keep and the high-end brothels of the city.

A week after the fight, a messenger found him. Not one of Borgo's thugs, but a boy in clean, if simple, livery. He carried a sealed note, bearing the wax sigil of a minor house sworn to the Crownlands—a silver moth on a field of grey. House Caelen. A house so insignificant he barely recalled them from his readings. The note was an invitation, a summons to a private meeting with a Lord Harmon Caelen.

This was the opening he had been waiting for. His first tendril reaching out of the filth of Flea Bottom and into the world of power and influence. 

He met Lord Harmon in a private room above a tavern on the Street of Silk, a place far too expensive for the likes of a pit fighter. The young lord was everything Kaelen had expected: soft, decadent, with the bored eyes of a man who had never known a day of true hardship. He was dressed in fine silks, a stark contrast to Kaelen's own rough-spun tunic and leather breeches.

"The Chimera," Harmon said, his voice a mixture of fascination and fear. He gestured to a chair, but Kaelen remained standing, a predator in a gilded cage. "Your performance… it was magnificent. Barbaric, but magnificent."

Kaelen said nothing, letting the lord's nervous chatter fill the room. Harmon spoke of the court's ennui, of the endless political maneuvering of the Small Council. He spoke of Lord Jon Arryn, the aging Hand, trying to hold the realm together while King Robert drank and hunted it into debt. He mentioned Lord Stannis, the king's grim brother, brooding on Dragonstone, and the handsome, popular Lord Renly, who played at politics as Master of Laws. He spoke of the Master of Coin, Petyr Baelish, a man of low birth but high ambition, and the eunuch Varys, whose spies were everywhere. 

It was all information Kaelen knew from the books, but hearing it confirmed, hearing it spoken as current events, was a grounding, focusing experience. He was in the right time, the right place. The clock was ticking.

"I have a proposition for you," Harmon said, finally getting to the point. "I have… rivals. Men who stand in my way. A man of your… unique talents could be very useful."

Kaelen looked at the weak, pampered lord and saw not an employer, but a tool. A pawn to be moved on the board. He had no interest in Harmon's petty squabbles, but the man had access. He had money. He had information.

"I am not an assassin," Kaelen said, his voice low and dangerous. "I am a warrior. I kill in the pit, for sport and for profit."

"Of course, of course," Harmon stammered, intimidated. "But perhaps… you could be persuaded to offer… protection? Or to arrange an… accident?"

Kaelen stepped closer, his shadow falling over the young lord. He let Harmon see the cold, reptilian stillness in his eyes, a hint of the basilisk that now lived within him. He leaned in, his voice a bare whisper.

"Accidents can be arranged. But my price is far more than coin."

Part IV: The First Thread of the Web

The deal was struck. Kaelen would become Lord Harmon's secret, terrifying shadow, a weapon to be wielded in the back alleys of King's Landing. In return, Harmon would be his eyes and ears in the Red Keep, his source of funds, and his entry point into the larger world.

Kaelen's first demand was simple. He wanted to know everything about the city's underworld. Not the fighting pits he already dominated, but the other networks: the smugglers, the thieves' guilds, the protection rackets. He knew from his reading that in a city this corrupt and poorly policed, power vacuums were common. While the great lords played their game of thrones, he would become the king of the gutters.

Harmon, eager to please his new pet monster, provided the information. He told him of the smuggling operations run out of the fish market, the rival gangs of thieves who controlled different sections of the city, the way the Gold Cloaks could be bribed to look the other way. 

Armed with this knowledge, Kaelen began to move. He was no longer content to simply wait for Borgo to bring him his next meal. He started to hunt. He used his nights not for rest, but for expansion. He moved through the twisting alleys of Flea Bottom like a phantom, his new senses guiding him through the darkness. 

He found a small-time gang of thugs who were running a protection racket on a handful of local merchants. He didn't challenge them openly. He stalked them, learned their routines, their weaknesses. Then, one by one, he eliminated them. The kills were silent, brutal, and efficient. A thumb to the throat in a dark alley. A fall from a rickety rooftop. A quick, venom-laced scratch from a "stray nail" that sent a man into a frothing, mad rage before his heart gave out.

He absorbed their petty skills, their knowledge of the city's secret paths, their low cunning. The power gain was minimal, a mere trickle compared to the deluge from the basilisk, but that wasn't the point. He was absorbing their territory. He was absorbing their fear.

Word spread through the underworld. A new power was rising in Flea Bottom. A ghost who killed without a sound, who took what he wanted and left only corpses behind. The other gangs grew fearful. The smugglers started paying him a tribute for safe passage. The thieves gave him a wide berth. He was building his own shadow kingdom, one corpse at a time.

One night, standing on a rooftop overlooking the squalid maze of his new domain, Kaelen looked up towards Aegon's High Hill. The Red Keep stood silhouetted against the moon, a symbol of a power he would one day challenge. He was still a world away, a creature of the pit and the alley. But he had taken the first crucial steps. He had a name. He had a growing legion of stolen skills. He had a source of information and a foothold in the world of the nobility. And he had a hunger, a cold, reptilian hunger for power that was only just beginning to awaken.

The game of thrones was being played in the castle on the hill. But down here, in the darkness and the filth, Kaelen was beginning a game of his own. A game of gods and monsters. And he was the only player.