After long hours of exhausting activities, a tired Max left Kyra resting on the bed, while he used wooden sex toys to create four bracelets not very different from the most elaborate ones he had seen on the stalls of the Winter Town market.
Although he had firmly decided to make Kyra his agent of influence in Winter Town, he was not sure how much time he would need to convince Ned to grant him enough autonomy for something like this. Therefore, for now, he decided to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to her. Though he also couldn’t entirely leave her without some token of gratitude for what had, so far, been the most pleasant hours he’d experienced in Westeros.
Closer to evening, Max told her to get dressed, and soon they slowly walked toward Winter Town, this time with her initiative in palm groping.
“Most likely I won’t be around for several weeks, maybe even a month. In such a case, don’t try to find me. If anyone asks about me other than Lord Stark or Maester Luwin, say that someone advised me to question you about your blacksmith father before meeting him,” Max continued instructing her.
“And what should I say to Lord Stark and Maester Luwin?”
“You can tell them the truth. But only them. And if you run into serious trouble, also go to them immediately and tell them that you’re under my protection.
And, Kyra... leave any stupid beliefs about a long-term relationship between us, or about some potential ‘next Starks.’ If you get pregnant, I will not only cut all ties with you, but there will also be serious consequences. Do you understand?” Max asked in a strained voice.
“Yes,” she said meekly, nodding quickly.
“Good. A decision about pregnancy without the father’s volition for the sake of the father’s attention is no better than rape, and should be reacted to accordingly. Spent on moon tea as much as you need to be fully sure.”
A few hundred meters before the town, he kissed her on the cheek, once again told her she had done well, and turned back.
’Kyra… At least something in my life is relatively simple,’ he thought.
’Kyra is exactly what she appears to be. A simple, good, beautiful girl from a good family, who clearly never knew serious strife and trials. None of her traits are unique… but the absence of substantial negative traits very much is.
The situation with charges…
It’s much better than I feared, but still clearly worse than I hoped.
It’s not really ‘charges for lewds with named characters,’ but rather ‘one charge for prolonged sexual exploration of one female named character.’
With Kyra — given her insatiable libido and temperament to boot — I got fairly lucky. But with so many women, diversity-oriented escapades would be much more problematic.
Also, my original timetable needs to be accelerated.
Even though I only remember a couple dozen ASOIAF named characters, a similar number of charges against the Others is far too optimistic for this universe. So it’s wiser to plan under the assumption that very soon most of the named characters currently available to me will suddenly become unavailable.’
Then Max began to think about how, with such charge mechanics, he could acquire the Kaleidoscope — the final objective of any multiverse-related adventures, fictional or real ones. A way out. A thing without which, even if you are some Spiral AND Anti-Spiral, a universe-sized monstrosity, you’re just the fattest fish in temporarily shallow waters. A delicacy.
Which was also one of the main reasons why Max rather detested the multiverse trope before his transmigration. Why value cooperation-based human rise over natural selection when it’s merely a temporary fluctuation between dog-eat-dog chases for chemical and magical snacks?
But despite such detesting, he didn’t have much of a choice: no Kaleidoscope and influence over higher levels of reality meant no guarantee that things would hold at lower ones. Only the same faith dinosaurs had in tomorrow’s sun before celestial mechanics decided otherwise.
So far, he had found only three potential, and very costly, paths to the Kaleidoscope: via True Revival, time travel, and sideways universal jumps. Three possible dead ends.
After returning home, Max examined the still slightly humid bedsheet torn by Kyra and had no choice but to replace it with an older one, still marked with unwashed charcoal symbols.
He heated the house with nearly the last remaining firewood, quickly undressed, and went to sleep.
Despite the high chance he’d only wake in the morning, attempting to implement complex plans while tired was far worse than just skipping a single day.
When he woke up, he immediately got dressed and opened the door to check the time.
Finding that it was still deep night, without cloudiness or precipitation, Max let out a breath of relief, opened the superpower catalog, and purchased a power whose description consisted of a single line: ’Allows three-dimensional flight at speeds up to 50 km/h, and stationary hovering.’
After short testing, he concluded: ’As expected, high speed is simultaneously the main advantage and the main drawback. Without additional physical protection and assistance with spatial orientation, any mistakes — especially those related to the impact of sudden acceleration on blood flow — can be fatal.’
Again confirming there was no sign of dawn outside, Max fused the remnants of the table, stools, and last logs into one large mass of wood, mixing it together, noting a drop in quality due to the breaking and shortening of wood fibers. Something he could control with “change basic structure” and “quality of the material can be equalized at the expense of volume,” but only in a rather partial, inconvenient, and time-consuming way.
He divided the created mass of wood into nine parts.
From the two largest parts, he made a thick cuirass and helmet, meant more for wind-shielding and stunning visual impact than for defense.
From six parts, he made vambraces, cuisses, and greaves.
And from the final part, he created an intricate wooden crown — something that would have taken even the finest craftsmen decades to produce. It consisted of four hollow hoops of different sizes. Each of them contained three free hollow spheres, which themselves contained two spheres. All of it featured windows and carvings shaped as identical wolf’s-head ornaments. To unite the hoops, he created one very long, thin granite ribbon and wrapped it around the crown in a spiral, with small granite prongs.
Once armored, Max gave the shack one last look, making sure he hadn’t forgotten anything, then closed it and soared into the sky.
“Wow. Just… wow. No wonder so many people dream about this,” he thought, weaving at an altitude of several kilometers while gazing down at rather well illuminated by moonlight land.
'Later,' he promised himself, and soon hovered above Winterfell, carefully scanning for guards. Confirming that a few dozen guards for a castle as massive as Winterfell posed no real threat, he drifted closer to a tower near the Glass Garden.
And after a heavy swallow, he began a rapid descent along the tower’s wall.
'Bingo!' Max rejoiced immediately after landing. Through his completely new sense, he sensed an enormous, yellow, diffuse cloud directly ahead of him, beyond the thick wall separating him from the Godswood.
After a few seconds of careful listening to the silence, he activated Copying.
A fourth tab immediately opened before him, featuring a long list of multicolored, labeled sliders and buttons.
'It’s almost like enchantment in TES: Morrowind!' Max realized in awe.
The new tab essentially allowed him to assemble a new superpower from aspects possessed by whoever he was copying from.
'Since I can only construct a one-charge superpower, most of the sliders are inactive.
Decentralized Domain, Self-Ritualism, Self-Totemism, Astral Projection, Mind Merge, Energy Merge, Energy Channeling, Wood Avatar, Living Conduit…
Either the Old Gods are at least minor godling who likely went dormant when magic left this world, or all of this is merely the full span of it theoretically possible, very pricey, magical capabilities.
Still… due to the possibility of min-maxing, now I can acquire weakened versions of superpowers that would normally cost me two to four points,' he realized, and began trying to apply his metagaming skills.
Next, Max spent a very long half hour analyzing options, and even longer ten minutes arguing with himself over the “Rare Energies Absorption” slider, which allowed him to spend the entire power limit on a single, “very inefficient” step, constantly recalling a fanon theory about Balerion, the Fluffy One, who supposedly gained at least longevity by consuming dragon bone marrow.
In the end, he nonetheless decided against it. 'I’m on a very bumpy road right now. I can’t look too far ahead; I need to watch where I’m stepping,' Max reasoned, focusing his attention on the remaining candidates.
'Wood Spy — will allow me to see, hear, and speak using marked trees. Too soon.
Animal Form — universal temporary shapeshifting, limited only to ±500% of my mass. Too simple.
Wood Refining — permanently enhance a single property of wood up to 300% of its original value by regenerating an energy reservoir. Intersects with stone and glass shaping.
Wide Mind — multitasking with probable protection against warging into me, though redundant relative to my already existing plans.'
In the end, he chose the power he believed to be the most synergistic with Sculptor, universal, scalable, and useful against the Others.
[ Wood: Extraction ]
By mental effort, allows sensing constituent substances within visible wood and extracting one of them at a time.
Extraction speed depends on the total quantity of substance being extracted at once.
'Electricity requires extremely complex machinery and infrastructure.
iesel engines requires oil and complex chemistry.
Steam engines requires coal; coal that I don't have, and perhaps, even with superpowers, wouldn't have during the next two years.
But nearby there’s an enormous forest... A rather useless forest, because firewood must not only cut and split, but also, to avoid wasting energy boiling water and stuff, dried — which is rather difficult in this region’s humid, windy conditions.
But what if I can rapidly dry large quantities of wood? How much would that accelerate firewood harvesting?
What if I can quickly extract resin and cellulose from wood? How much would that speed up charcoal production, whose creation is essentially the removal of those substances from wood?
What if, through a glass window, I can extract nitrogen from wood, one of the most important elements of fertilizers and, somehow, explosives? And cellulose, the key material of paper and gunpowder?
Also, the civilization surrounding me is built from wood. Wood is literally everywhere, including in sword hilts and knights’ saddles. A line-of-sight ability to weaken and destroy all of that… it’s big.
This is pretty far from the ‘Garth Greenhand–style power’ I was hoping for, but a ‘he who molds and destroys wood’ repertoire could still plausibly pass for it.'
A few seconds later, Max noticed that the sky had begun to lighten, so he immediately took “Wood: Extraction” and shot up into the air.
Flying roughly two hundred meters east, he landed near the Broken Tower.
Swiftly entering through the empty doorway, he lit a candle with flint, inspected the walls, and immediately went back outside.
’Won’t work. The tower hasn’t just collapsed inward by a third; it’s also partially sunk into the first floor. It could fully collapse at any moment.’
Taking off again, he landed on the broad roof of the First Keep.
After a quick inspection — both with his eyes and through Sculptor — of the broad stone terrace, he descended one of the two wide spiral staircases and, by candlelight, examined the enormous lower floor, one third of which was filled with barrels and bags of grain.
’Perfect.’
Descending one level lower, Max placed the wooden crown near the stairwell exit and sealed the entrance with a thick layer of stone taken from adjacent walls. Then he repeated the sealing with the second stairwell.
Returning to the roof, he lifted into the air and began slowly descending along the wall facing the center of Winterfell.
Roughly halfway down the tower, he settled onto the ledge of a wide stone embrasure and smoothed and fused the stone surface in an eleven-meter diameter.
Returning to the roof, because of adrenaline and just for fun, he fixed cracks in one of the basilisk-like gargoyles near the stairwell, turned it around, and made it look straight into the stairwell exit, naming it Basilisk Shitmaker.
Finally, descending back down to the section of the staircase near the crown, he created a tiny window in the side of the wall, sat nearby, and began to wait, chewing smoked meat in the damp, dark corridor.
Only about two hours later did he finally hear footsteps outside.
’At last! What are they paid for?!’ he thought.
“Who’s there?” a male voice shouted from somewhere far away.
“Tell Lord Stark that a man capable of creating towers like this in days — just as likely as Bran the Builder could — wants to speak with him,” he shouted back, then fell silent despite a barrage of questions.
Creating the main shields against possible Ned’s wrath — witnesses and rumors.
Of course, Ned Stark was Lord of Winterfell and all that. But he was Lord of Winterfell only because Winterfell had once been built by a man with abilities and knowledge unparalleled before now. Before, as already somehow shown, Max. Which created pressure on Ned and openings for Max.
The rest of the plan was also crafted for Ned and because of Ned. If this were anyone but him, Max would probably have devised something more discreet and complex. But with straightforward Ned, any complexity would have only backfired.
After intense commotion and a barrage of questions, everything went quiet, and in a grave tone someone said:
“I am Eddard of House Stark, Lord and Warden of the tower you have claimed for yourself, mage. I order you to open the passage and explain yourself.”
“I am Toren Northson.
An orphan who awoke anew two days ago.
With abilities.
To shape stone, glass, and clay, perhaps as Bran the Builder of old. To shape wood, perhaps as Garth Greenhand of old.
With knowledge.
About the past and the future.
About ways to build or destroy castles like this in days.
About ways to stop hordes of the dead so vast and cold that I don’t believe they can be comprehended without losing part of one’s mind.
A passage? Soon it will be opened, Lord Stark. But only after I learn whether you can master your fear, your greed, and your anger, and decide whether it is worth my time to stay in the North for the sake of your honor, or whether I should instead turn to Olenna’s or Tywin’s minds and money.”
Then a long silence followed.
“So far, you have provided no proof of your words beyond a wooden curiosity and magic. Powerful magic, but still just magic,” said another, harsher and drier voice.
’Low, fucking, magic universes! No trepidation before miracles,’ Max raged.
“Promise me, Ned,” he gambled.
“Benjen, take everyone out,” said the first voice.
“Are you sure?”
“Aye. At least two floors down.”
About a minute later, Ned asked in a strained voice:
“Who spoke those words, mage?”
“She who was meant to willingly forge the alliance of Ice and Fire by giving life to the Prince That Was Promised. New Azor Ahai.
Create the one and only future I know through visions.
With Jon Snow, either still alive or being born as a boy.”
“What happened in such visions?”
“As bad as you can imagine, Lord Stark.
Robert died, and Joffrey was little better than the Mad King himself — the fruit of incest between Cersei and her brother, something part of the Players already know, and which became the true cause of Jon Arryn’s death, if he is already dead.
You, as Robert’s Hand, died too — a laughingstock for the Players, so named the ‘honorable fool.’
Your wife, and some of your children, also died. Winterfell and Winter Town were massacred by ironmen and Boltons.
Westeros collapsed into wars between claimants: Tywin, Stannis, Renly, the Greyjoys, and others.
Varys the spymaster was a Blackfyre loyalist with a fake Aegon and the support of the Golden Company and part of Pentos.
The Master of Coin financially ruined the realm of a constantly grieving, drunken king.
New King-Beyond-the-Wall, Mance Rayder, gathered and led against the Well enormous wildling's hordes.
Things like that. Total chaos. Even before the Others.”
“And then?”
“Then there was a miracle that no longer exists.”
“Jon Snow?”
“A weaving of fate that no more.”
“Empty words,” Ned defensively repeated Benjen’s argument.
“Aye. That’s why I offer you an unpleasant truth and a deal.”
“Have you not been told unpleasant truths before?”
“Only part of it.”
“Speak.”
“I am not certain myself, but I think that my knowledge and abilities are compensation for the absence of Jon Snow, as he should have been.
As of now, I am merely a builder, incapable of winning against even a single Other mage from great many.
Yet I can and must grow stronger.
I’m not all-knowing, but from what I understand, there are three paths to gaining magical power.
The black path, which consumes life. It is the fastest path, but has a worse foundation than the Broken Tower one.
The red path, which takes the best parts of life: vitality and health. But exacts a slow toll by mixing your own essence with that of others, until eventually there is no you left, only abominations not much different from the gargoyles of this tower. No matter which essence you take, whether of infants like that woman-bat of the past, or a single dragon.
And the green path, which takes very small parts of nature and makes them your own by mixing them with your essence through rituals of life creation.
According to my knowledge, I can grow only by this third way, perhaps as it was with Garth Greenhand, ancestor of Bran the Builder.
The fastest way to use the third path is — I’ll be blunt — by having sex with women who possess a strong destiny or share a strong fate.”
“And you ask me to whore my daughters to you?” asked Ned with steel in his voice.
“Backwards. I want you not to interfere with their fully voluntary will.”
“Not interfere? I am their father!”
“Funny enough, but the main reason I chose you, Lord Stark, is because of my fear of opposite reactions…
And I’m not the one you should protect them from. I will never impose myself on a maiden if she doesn’t want it.
But since, as you said, so far these are just empty words, I propose a very simple deal. But before I name it, I need to know: is Jon Arryn still alive or not? And if he is already dead, when will Robert Baratheon arrive at Winterfell?”
“Who is responsible for his death?”
“Petyr Baelish’s scheme and Lysa Arryn’s poison. My questions?”
“Petyr Baelish?”
“Aye. Out of love for your wife, desire for your daughter, and fear created by your brother. Of all the Game of Thrones Players, he is the most insidious one.”
“Jon Arryn died half a moon ago. The King will arrive about a one moon.”
“I propose the following. For exactly one week, we completely forget about most of this conversation, we—”
“Forget? How can one forget, regardless of whether you are right or wrong?”
“Through strength of will. Or did the last King in the North, by bending the knee to the dragon, weaken the wolves so much that they now cannot even remain silent for a single week about something they don’t truly believe in?
Can I continue?”
“Continue.”
“During this week, we will just try to get to know each other better.
No attacks by body, wits, or magic. No attempts by me to seduce your blood, or to turn anything or anyone against you or yours. And no attempts by you to tie me down to House Stark.
To compensate for the risks, starting tomorrow, five hours a day, under Stark supervision, I will create whatever House Stark desires from me. Nine-tenths of the profit from such creations will go to the Starks; one-tenth to me.
If after one week we won’t be happy with each other, I will take my money and fly away to heal Willas, rejuvenate Olenna, and fight back Margaery’s attempts to tie me down to the Tyrells at any cost.”
’...and to present anime figurines to Mace,’ thought Max.
“And if I don’t agree to your terms?”
“Then I will fly away to the Tyrells right away. No hard feelings. I will still protect the North when it needs my protection, but no more than that.”
“Not to your king? Not to Tywin Lannister, as you named before?”
“Robert Baratheon is, or was, a man with heart in right place... but also a very bad king who had, but no longer has, a very good Hand, without whom... soon you will see yourself, a shell of the man you once knew.
To speak with him as he is now is just a waste of time and a yield to the vipers of King’s Landing.
Tywin? Only after the Tyrells, and perhaps Stannis Baratheon. He is a very sour choice, but it’s not my fault that the best mind of the realm — during times such a realm needs such minds the most — is so detested.”
“If you are right, I must prepare for wars and the Others. If you are wrong, I will invite the direwolf into the fold.”
“If I am right about the Others, then leave concern about them to me, including by belief in my present proposition.
If I’m wrong, then with the help of the guards, the Reeds, and Benjen Stark — who, in any case, was meant to die soon and whose primary task is already pointless — just earn hundreds of thousands of gold dragons in a week, and make me other people’s problem.”
Then fell a long silence.
“Do you swear that you will harbor no ill intent, nor commit any ill deeds against House Stark?” asked Stark.
“I swear that I will harbor no ill intent, nor commit any deeds against House Stark.”
“Then I swear by House Stark that House Stark will harbor no ill intent, nor commit ill deeds against you.”
'At last,' Max let out a heavy breath. 'That was… intense.'
There were many reasons why Max had chosen to act exactly this way.
Symbolism. An olive branch. Unpredictability. Witness restraint. Proof of magic. A guarantee that Ned would hear him out to the end and on Max’s terms.
The opportunity to soften “I must prepare the realm for the Others through sex with your daughters” through informational overload. The possibility of just flying away to the Tyrells, the sanest and richest house of Westeros.
But among all these reasons, two mattered more than the rest.
First, because Max himself was, in part, similar to Ned, and he knew that any omission, any half-truth, would eventually be perceived as deception. If he were in Ned’s place, he would want to hear everything that truly mattered clearly, directly, and immediately.
Second, because Max did not want to carry the crushing burden of responsibility for Westeros alone. And with Ned, that was unnecessary. With him, he could set part of the burden down on the ground and be certain that Ned would pick it up and begin to carry it alongside him.
Not immediately, of course. Ned Stark isn’t a trusting fool. But soon enough. Because despite rather shitty qualities for a medieval lord, he had decent qualities for a civilized, reasonable person, which, if one really thinks about it, through the better empathy and cooperativeness of his children, saved Westeros no less than Daenerys’s dragons.
Focusing on the T-shaped stone beneath his heel, which passed through sock and sole of his boot to the stone floor below, Max felt the structure of the floor, shifted his view forward, and — not without fear — willed the stone to move apart.
Instead of Ice in his chest, he soon saw blinding morning light, and thereafter, three to four meters from himself, a man in full armor—helmetless and unfamiliar to him. Middle-aged. A long face framed by a dark-brown beard and long hair falling just past his shoulders. One hand rested on the hilt of a sheathed sword; the other held a lowered small round shield with a painted wolf snout.
Max had deliberately created sophisticated armor, avoided the word “my lord,” and now ignored the bow expected from his stance for the sake of this moment. The moment when, according to the plan, he was supposed to hover at least a few centimeters above the floor. But right now, such theatrics seemed to him just wrong.
So he simply stepped out of the doorway toward the motionless Eddard Stark and carried out the final part of the plan unchanged:
“Lord Stark.
As Max Northson, I would have asked for forgiveness.
But I am no longer fully him.
Therefore, I ask for understanding.
And to be known as Max the Maker.”