[8000+ MP]
[Passive: The Mother of the Reach to Margeary Tyrell]
[New summon: Black Night Maids: 200 MP]
[Summon Upgrade Card +1]
Alaric stared at the floating blue text. Eight thousand points. He tapped his finger against the wooden armrest. The jump to eight thousand was a good increase. He wasn't going to complain about the extra spending power.
He tapped the screen to open the details for the new passive ability.
[Passive: The Mother of the Reach]
[Description: Tied directly to the Tyrell bloodline. The bonded partner is highly fertile. As long as Margaery Tyrell is happy and in a good mood, the region she is currently in will thrive. Local crops will yield massive harvests, water sources will purify, and the spread of disease will drop drastically.]
Alaric read the description twice. He leaned back in his chair.
It wasn't a weapon or a new combat skill, but it was exactly what he needed. King's Landing was a mess. The smallfolk were starving, and the city was covered in ash. If he just kept his wife happy, the land would fix itself. The people would get fed, the water would be clean, and disease wouldn't spread through the crowded slums. It was the ultimate tool for ruling a kingdom without using force.
"Well," Alaric muttered to himself in the empty tent. "Keeping her in a good mood is easy enough."
He thought about their trip to the waterfall yesterday. As long as he gave her his time and let her play her games, she was perfectly content.
He tapped the next icon on the screen. The details for the new summon opened up.
[New Unit: Black Night Maids]
[Cost: 200 MP per unit]
[Description: Elite espionage and protection units disguised as flawless highborn handmaidens. They require zero sleep and possess perfect memory for intercepting and copying documents. Highly skilled in all household duties. Armed with hidden dark-steel weaponry.]
Alaric nodded slowly. This was exactly what his bonded partners needed. King's Landing was full of leftover spies who used to work for Varys and Littlefinger. His Blood Knights were great for intimidating armies, but they couldn't stand quietly in the corner of a drawing room and listen to lords whisper. These maids could clean a solar, read every hidden letter on a desk, and slit an assassin's throat before the target even noticed.
He then glanced at his point total in the top corner of his vision.
Previous balance: 31,820.
Plus the 8,000 from the bond reward.
His current balance sat at 39,820 MP.
At 200 points each, the maids were incredibly cheap. He could buy an entire household of them right now without making a dent in his reserves.
Alaric swiped the screen away. He stood up from the heavy wooden chair and grabbed his dark leather sword belt from the table, buckling it tightly around his waist. He had sat in the tent long enough. It was time to go to the main pavilion.
He reached for the heavy canvas flap of the tent.
Before his hand even touched the fabric, a bright gold light flashed across his vision. ringing sound that made him stop in his tracks.
A new text box snapped open right in front of his face.
[NEW MAIN QUEST GENERATED]
[Target: The Lion's Pride]
[Objective: Claim a living descendant of the Lannister bloodline and form a Sovereign Bond.]
[Reward: Blessing Upgrade (The Blessing of the Sun)]
Alaric let his hand drop from the tent flap. He stared at the golden text.
He read the bonus reward again. The Blessing of the Sun was the only reason he survived Cersei's wildfire trap yesterday. It gave him absolute immunity to heat and limitless stamina in the sunlight. If the System was offering a direct upgrade to it, the power jump would be massive.
But the objective made him pause.
Claim the Lannister bloodline.
He thought about the prisoners locked in the damp cells beneath the kingslanding. Jaime was in different dungeon though and Cersei was mad women. Tommen was just a boy. That left Myrcella.
He remembered what Margaery had told him by the waterfall just yesterday.
It seemed the System agreed with his wife.
"Looks like my visit to the dungeons just got a lot more interesting," Alaric muttered.
He closed the golden screen, pushed the tent flap aside, and stepped out into the loud, busy camp.
...
Inside the main Tyrell pavilion, the air smelled like ink and stale canvas. Margaery sat at the head of a long wooden table, crossing out lines on a grain manifest. Sansa sat across from her, sorting through troop reports, while Roslin quietly stacked sealed letters on the corner of the table.
It had been quiet for the last hour. A little too quiet.
Margaery put her quill down and leaned back in her chair. She looked at Sansa, then at Roslin. Both girls were keeping their eyes glued to the table. Every few minutes, they would accidentally brush hands reaching for a piece of parchment, freeze, and quickly look away from each other with bright red cheeks.
Margaery smiled. She folded her hands on the table.
"You two have been acting like startled rabbits all morning," Margaery said casually. "Are you going to tell me what happened, or do I have to guess?"
Roslin fumbled a stack of letters. She scrambled to pick them up, her face burning. "Nothing happened, Margaery. We're just... tired."
"Tired," Margaery repeated, clearly not believing a word of it. She looked at Sansa. "Sister Sansa. You usually have more composure than this. What has you blushing like a maid on her wedding day?"
Sansa stopped reading her report. She let out a heavy breath and put the parchment down. She looked at Margaery, then at Roslin, who was currently trying to hide behind a ledger.
"It's just..." Sansa started, her voice dropping to a nervous whisper. She glanced toward the tent flap to make sure no guards were listening. "Last night. In Alaric's tent."