1st bonus chapter: 120 powerstones
2nd bonus chapter: 200 powerstones
3rd bonus chapter: 250 powerstones
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Though there was something he was curious about and he spoke his thoughts. "There is something I would know," Jon said at last. Moqorro paused. Kinvara turned slightly. Benerro remained where he stood, patient.
"Mantarys. Tolos. Elyria who truly governs them? What do they command? What do they believe?" Jon knew going into war without understanding was the height of foolishness and arrogance.
A faint smile touched Kinvara's lips. "Good," she said softly. "You are thinking like more than a soldier."
Benerro gestured toward the pyre. "Let me show you who we will be fighting!"
The fire shifted first into a distorted skyline. Mantarys rose from blasted earth, its towers jagged and unnatural. Black stone twisted at odd angles. Bridges arched like ribs between spires. The land around it appeared scarred with discolored patches of soil, warped vegetation, lingering haze.
"The greatest threat. This is why above all else the old bloods wish to go on this campaign. The city of monsters is on the rise!" Kinvara said quietly.
"Mantarys lies deep within the eastern hinterlands of old Valyria," she began, voice low and deliberate. "A place merchants avoid where city caravans skirt in wide arcs. It was never named among the Free Cities but its antiquity rivals them."
Jon could feel it even through flame. Something in the image felt wrong. "Mantarys was once a Valyrian outpost," Moqorro began. "Not a Free City, but a place of experimentation. A crucible. Where the dragonlords carried on their experimental sorcery—biomancy, blood manipulation, forced evolution during the height of the Freehold."
Benerro's voice lowered. "When the Doom consumed Valyria, Mantarys did not perish. It endured."
The city's people appeared next. They were human mostly. Elongated limbs. Mismatched eyes. Patches of scaled skin glinting faintly. Some bore faint horn nubs along temples. Others possessed unnatural pallor or subtly widened jaws.
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"They are insular," Benerro said. "Secretive. Altered." Jon studied them carefully. The deformities were not hidden. They were accepted.
"In Mantarys," Kinvara explained, "to be altered is not shameful. It is proximity to power." Children ran through streets without fear of mutation. Flesh was not sacred. It was clay. Pain was refinement. Outsiders were unfinished things.
"Slavery exists," Moqorro added, "but not as most practices it where they are servants or soldiers." The fire showed chained captives not hauling stone but being led into vaulted underground chambers. "In Mantarys," Moqorro said evenly, "captives are raw material."
Jon's jaw tightened and his stomach roiled in disgust. "They worship the flesh above all else. And revere transcendence through alteration," Kinvara said. "They practice ancient Valyrian rites survived there in distorted form—blood rites, flesh binding, hybridization rituals.
"Their theology is simple," Benerro said. "Perfection is not inherited. It is constructed."
"So who rules the city truly?" Jon asked since he knew that was what mattered.
"The Father of Monsters," Kinvara said. A figure appeared who was tall and gaunt, draped in layered robes stitched from hides of uncertain origin. Faint seams traced his own skin that were surgical, precise.
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"A flesh alchemist. Once chief biomancer in Mantarys' academy. The main pillar of the city"
The fire descended into subterranean chambers. Vaulted laboratories hummed with unnatural activity. Flesh stitched. Bone grafted. Creatures submerged in alchemical fluids.
"He believes evolution must be accelerated," Benerro said. Under his direction, entire castes of altered citizens had been engineered.
War-beasts bred from spliced human and animal stock. Soldiers with reinforced skeletal structures resistant to blunt trauma. Infantry with enhanced pain tolerance. Enlarged lung capacity for endurance. Some shock troops bore grafted claws or horn plating.
"He is not just mad," Moqorro said quietly. "He is clinical and very thorough."
Then the flames moved on to the second ruler to the city. It was a woman robed in deep crimson-black silk, arms marked with dried runic patterns. Her eyes burned with quiet, predatory intelligence.
"The Mother of Monsters," Kinvara said. "A blood witch. This is what had the Old blood alarmed. Mantarys has two masters!"
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Where the Father shaped flesh, she commanded blood. "She practices hemomancy," Moqorro continued. "Manipulating lineage. Awakening dormant traits. Corrupting inherited lines."
Jon watched as the fire showed ritual circles filled with blood traced into spirals. "She recently arrived in the city a few years ago and with the aid of the Flesh Alchemist orchestrated the overthrow of their former ruler," Benerro said.
The image shifted briefly to a grotesque, immense figure seated upon a throne of bone tearing human flesh from a roasted limb. "The Ogre," Kinvara said calmly. "A cannibal despot known for his crude brutality."
"His appetite was well known and he devoured his own subjects," Moqorro added.
Jon watched the scenes unfold in the city. The two Masters had replaced barbarism with structured horror. "They rule in harmony," Benerro said. "Science and sorcery fused."
Jon absorbed it all. "And their strength?" he asked, wanting to know the key parts of their powerbase.
"Mantarys is well known for its famed elite shock infantry," Moqorro replied immediately. "The Flesh Terrors."
The flames erupted into a battlefield. Mantaryan soldiers advanced with bone-reinforced, unmoved by injury, eyes unblinking as they crashed into enemy lines. They were relentless, unflinching and brutal.
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"They do not rout easily," Kinvara said. "They are conditioned very well and they endure just about anything thrown at them."
Mantarys did not favor cavalry or naval warfare. It specialized in brutal ground engagement and urban defense. In siege, their altered defenders could fight for days.
Moqorro's voice grew lower. "Their infantry does not arise by chance. There are their crafters, the cabal that truly rule the city."
From the shadows stepped figures robed not in armor but in layered aprons stained dark. Their hands were long, precise. Their eyes sharp with calculation. "The Flesh Alchemists," Moqorro said. The flames showed their procedures. Them experimenting on flesh, grafting skin, replacing bones and muscles.
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"The Flesh Alchemists serve as Mantarys' arcane core," Kinvara said. "They do not throw fire. They reshape life." Some of these mage-surgeons accompanied the armies to war. In the aftermath of battle, they harvested what they required. Fallen enemies were not always buried.
The flames darkened and then flared anew. From massive iron gates emerged something that silenced even the imagined battlefield noise. A chimera.
It towered above the infantry, its body an amalgam of lion, scaled serpent, and horned bull. Wings half-formed but powerful enough for short gliding descents. Its hide was layered in uneven plates of hardened dermis. Multiple eyes gleamed along its skull, each swiveling independently.
When it roared, the sound shook the vision itself.
"Finally their most sought after war-beasts," Moqorro said. "The Chimera."
The beast charged. Enemy lines shattered. Horses reared and bolted. Men scattered as the creature plowed through ranks, claws and horns tearing through armor as though it were cloth. A second chimera followed, slightly smaller but faster, its tail ending in a venomous barb.
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The Flesh Alchemists bred them in secrecy, combining creatures and some whispered human stock to refine aggression and obedience. No two were identical for some reason. Some breathed gouts of ignited vapor triggered by alchemical sacs. Others exuded toxins from their skin.
"It is not their numbers that make them formidable," Moqorro finished. "It is their resilience."
Jon's gaze lingered on the flame. It seemed the city's name was apt indeed. It was truly a place of monsters.
…
The fire shifted, reshaping itself into a darker vision. A coastline took form which was jagged and severe. Black cliffs speared into a churning sea, between them lay a labyrinth of ravines and broken escarpments where sunlight seemed reluctant to linger.
"Tolos sits along the southern coast," Benerro said. The vision in the flames slithered through the ledges and caverns yawning wide open exhaling faint, restless vapors. Things moved within those crevices. "In the Black Cliff region where few dare to travel through it."
Even from the pyre's illusion, the terrain felt hostile. Entire caravans had vanished attempting the descent. Ships that strayed too near the coastal shoals were dragged against submerged rock teeth or simply… taken.
"Tolos lies somewhere within," Moqorro added evenly. The flames shifted again and the cliffs parted showing architecture carved into the landscape. The city of Tolos emerged in flame and shadow, its form rising from the molten pyre with the elegance of a serpent slipping from a darkened coil.
"It is prosperous. Refined." Jon watched the domed arenas shimmered. Perfumed courtyards, where the elite gathered for their banquets and spectacles, spread out beneath the looming shadows of gleaming statues and fountains.
"Never a Free City," Kinvara added, "but wealthy enough to rival lesser ones. Tolos barely ever had a central authority, its government always shrouded in a complex web of alliances, rivalries, and subtle machinations."
Kinvara's gaze shifted over the assembly as she continued. "Poison," she said, her voice lowering slightly, "is elevated to an art here. Honor exists, but it is transactional. It is not freely given but earned in debts and favors."
Jon looked down at the city people who were artists, duelists, merchants, travelers, and more. Blood sports were staged as aesthetic performances. Unlike Mantarys' overt monstrosity, Tolos wore its power with polish.
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Still the images continued into subterranean passages tunneled deeper into the cliff's heart. Vaulted chambers lay hidden behind ornate doors. And in those lower reaches, shadows thickened.
"This was once a Valyrian post," Kinvara said quietly. "Not for flesh, as Mantarys was. For shadow."
The flames descended further, revealing ancient halls carved long before the current city's splendor. Basalt pillars spiraled downward into cavernous chambers where braziers burned with smokeless violet fire. On the walls, inscriptions in High Valyrian script coiled like living things.
"The old dragonlords came here," Benerro said, voice low, reverent despite himself. "They sought to master what they could not burn."
"Tolos was a crucible of umbral sorcery," Moqorro explained. "The dragonlords experimented with binding shadow to will. Shaping it. Feeding it. Forcing it to serve."
Jon did not know how to feel about that, everywhere he looked the mark of the dragonlords could be felt in Essos. They were truly the masters of the world…Now though they were all but gone with their last descendants dethroned and their last heirs on the streets and their legacies being picked at clean.
"They tolerate our Lord of Light," Kinvara said, "but do not kneel fully to the flame. They rather dabble in their shadowy arts and worship dark gods!"
The fire shifted again, and the image changed. There, rising from the heart of Tolos, stood the Black Spire. It was a tall, narrow tower that seemed to stretch endlessly into the heavens.
"This is the seat of power in Tolos," Benerro explained as the image of the spire grew larger. "The home of the Shadow Lord."
The flames flickered and then reshaped themselves again, bringing forth a cloaked figure that appeared from within the spire, a figure hidden in darkness, its features obscured by a heavy hood. The shadow seemed to move with a life of its own, as though the man himself was not entirely of the world.
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"He is the hidden master shadowbinder that rules this city," Benerro murmured. "Rumored to be a shadowman from Asshai!"
Jon's heart skipped a beat at the mention of Asshai, the mysterious land from which few returned, a place where the very air was thick with forbidden arts and the whispers of things older than men. To think that the Shadow Lord hailed from such a place made him feel the weight of what Tolos truly was.
"He had risen during political collapse decades ago, consolidating control through calculated elimination. He governs through disappearance," Kinvara said. "Rivals vanish. Plots unravel before they begin."
Jon could see Tolosi's strength was not massed armies. It was through the shadows.
Moqorro's voice entered the conversation. "Above all else Tolos is known for precision warfare. Power is wielded not by armies or walls but by silence. It is a city where shadows take life, where whispers hold more weight than steel."
The flames shifted once more, revealing a new image. This one was darker still no longer a grand spectacle of noble games or polished marble. Now it was a back alley, slick with rain, a darkened figure moving swiftly through the shadows.
Jon could see the flickering image of assassins, their movements quick and deliberate. These were the Shadowblades, Tolos' most infamous assassination guild. Like the Sorrowmen and other such groups, they were merciless, precise, and deadly.
"The Shadowblades," Benerro said, his voice cold. "A brotherhood of assassins as lethal as any guild in the world. Their members are trained from youth in the shadow arts. They move in darkness, kill in silence, and vanish without a trace. If the Tolos ever needs something... removed, they send them."
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Jon took it in, the weight of the information settling in his chest. Unlike Mantarys, where monstrous flesh was shaped and reformed into brutal weapons of war, Tolos' power came in the art of the unseen, the unspoken, the invisible hand that moved in the dark.
The flames shifted once more, and the scene before Jon grew darker, more twisted, as though the very night itself had been brought to life.
From the shadowed streets and bloodstained arenas of Tolos, the image of another threat emerged something not born of man but of nightmare. The flames took on a ghostly, otherworldly hue as the image of the Nightmare Horses materialized before Jon's eyes, creatures of shadow and terror.
"They are not just beasts," Moqorro said, his voice almost a whisper. "They are fear made flesh. They induce nightmares. A single glance into their eyes, and you are cursed with night terrors; visions of death, torment, and fear so vivid that they consume the mind. Found in the Black Hills around Tolos, it is said these creatures are born from them."
Jon could feel the weight of the words. The horses were not like any beasts he had ever seen. Their coats were a swirling mass of black smoke, their eyes glowing with a crimson intensity that pierced through the very darkness of the night. Their hooves were not solid but seemed to dissipate into wisps of shadow with every step they took, leaving a faint trail of writhing darkness in their wake.
"They were tamed by the people of Tolos. They are as much a part of the city as its shadowy rulers. They are ridden by the Night Cavalry," Kinvara added, her voice low. "Tolos' elite heavy cavalry, feared across the land. Silent riders who appear without warning, out of nowhere, as if born of the very shadows themselves."
The image shifted again. The Night Cavalry appeared, figures cloaked in black armor, their forms barely visible beneath the weight of their shadowy cloaks. The riders sat astride their Nightmare Horses, their faces obscured by helmets forged of blackened steel, leaving only their glowing eyes visible.
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"Tolos is not a city to take lightly," Kinvara said, her voice filled with warning. "It is a city that controls through terror. If we are to move against them, we must prepare for a war in the shadows before we even reach their walls."
Jon nodded grimly, understanding the depth of the danger that lay ahead. The Red Faith would face no easy foe in Tolos. Tolos was a dark city filled with threats everywhere in the shadows, and those shadows would be coming for them.
…
The flames flickered once more, casting eerie, shifting shadows across the chamber, as the next image formed in the fire. The blue and silver hues mingled, and soon Jon could see a city like none he had yet encountered. Elyria.
An island where the ocean's breath seemed to ripple through every stone and wave. The city appeared to rise from the water itself, its spires gleaming like the teeth of great sea beasts. The buildings were crafted of coral and marble, their walls covered with intricate sea-themed mosaics, their towers twisting upward like the spiral shells of ancient sea creatures. The sound of water was never far off; the lapping of the sea, the call of distant gulls, the crash of waves against the pier.
"This is Elyria," Benerro began, his voice steady, but Jon could hear a note of respect in it. "A city of the ocean with the water close to heart."
"Elyria had always been different from the rest of the Free Cities. It was a place where the sea held sway, not just over the lives of the people but over the very soul of the city," Kinvara begin explaining.
"Unlike the other cities of Essos, which had been founded through trade, conquest, or military might, Elyria had always been a city of sailors, of fishermen, of divers, and the faithful who worshiped the power of the sea. For centuries, the city's survival had hinged upon its connection to the vast, unpredictable expanse of the oceans surrounding it."
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Jon could see the waters around the city alive with ships; sleek, fast vessels painted in deep blues and sea greens, their sails emblazoned with the sigil of the sea serpents. These ships moved as if the sea itself was guiding them, effortlessly cutting through the waves, as if the ocean whispered its secrets to the sailors who steered them.
Jon watched Elyria's people who were like their city—fluid, adaptive, and deeply connected to the waters that surrounded them. They were a mix of seafarers, merchants, harpoon warriors, fishermen and divers. Pearls and sea glass were highly prized, not just for their beauty, but for the mystical properties they were said to hold.
The city was also home to some of the finest artists and musicians in Essos. The ocean, with its endless rhythms and secrets, inspired much of the city's culture. The streets were lined with small artisan shops, where intricate sculptures of sea creatures were carved from driftwood and seashells.
"They do not wage land wars as Mantarys does," Benerro said. "Nor do they hide within shadowed cliffs like Tolos."
"They rule the sea," Kinvara finished.
Still he wondered what exactly the old dragonlords founded this post for and asked just that. "So why was this island city founded by Valyria?"
Moqorro's eyes reflected the silver fire. "To commune."
The sea in the vision grew darker. Deepening. Robed figures stood at the water's edge from long ago. Dragon sorcerers of Valyria in scaled cloaks of black and crimson. Their hands were raised, not in dominance, but in invocation. They chanted in High Valyrian, their voices low and resonant.
The tide responded as it stilled perfectly still. Then something vast moved beneath the surface. Jon's could not make out what it was and asked.. "What is that?"
Kinvara answered softly. "What prowls where even dragons will not descend."
The flames revealed only glimpses; immense silhouettes turning beneath the waves. Eyes like pale moons opening in the abyss. Tendrils or fins or limbs that did not conform to any single shape. The sea around the island churned with ancient awareness.
"They believed the ocean held powers different from fire and blood," Benerro said. "Old intelligences. Older than Valyria. Older than dragons."
"And they thought they could bargain with them?" Jon asked.
"They thought they could learn from them," Moqorro corrected. The vision showed offerings cast into the depths of pearls, blood, obsidian blades. In return, currents shifted gently around the island, forming natural barriers of reef and hidden shoal. Storms broke strangely, avoiding the water shores and ancient tablets carved in spiraling alien shape, barnacle-crusted relics of impossible design, fragments of materials that did not resemble wood, bone, or coral were let onto shore.
The flames shifted forward in time. The dragonlords were gone. The Doom had come and passed. But Elyria remained and it still practiced the old rites. They were not able to summon forth whatever those vast presences that stirred the deep were but lesser things were called and bargained with in the seas.
"They remember," Moqorro said. "Even if they no longer understand fully." Jon watched as night fell in the vision. The sea turned black glass beneath the moon. Along the reefs, figures perched on stone outcroppings when the tide ran low. Their silhouettes were almost human from a distance until they shifted wrong. Joints bending too fluidly. Spines arching in unnatural curves. Fingers too long, ending in delicate points that tapped rhythmically against wet rock.
"The ruler of the city is the Sea witch who is said to be a mermaid herself or a descendant of one," Kinvara said. "She leads the city's primitive religion tied to the worship of the sea and the creatures found in them. Acts as the emissary for the oceanic spirits and creatures who walked to the shores."
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The flames showed the woman cloaked in blue and silver, her long flowing hair often tangled with seaweed and coral. She stood upon a crescent pier of pale stone, the sea churning restlessly below. She governed with an iron will, maintaining a delicate balance between the people of Elyria and the forces that ruled the ocean.
"Besides her are the sea women who she leads," Kinvara continued. The flames widened, revealing figures emerging from the surf like apparitions. They were beautiful women draped in garments woven from translucent fabrics that clung like mist. Their skin bore faint iridescent undertones, as if the sheen of fish scales lay just beneath the surface. Some wore crowns of woven kelp and shell; others carried staffs carved from bleached driftwood. Their eyes reflected shifting blues and greens, mirroring shallow reef and abyssal trench alike.
"The water witches. Keepers of their false tide-faith. They control the water currents and can summon tsunami onto their foes acting as conduits for the sea."
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"Besides them Elyria was renowned for its navy, their ships dominated the waters of the narrow seas. Unlike the heavy warships of Volantis or Braavos, Elyria's ships were sleek, fast, and incredibly maneuverable. They were designed for hit-and-run tactics, striking at their enemies before vanishing back into the mist and waves. The navy of Elyria was composed of experienced sailors, most of whom had spent their lives at sea, their hands hardened by salt and wind," Benerro mentioned.
The ships of Elyria appeared painted in hues of blue and silver, their sails adorned with the emblem of the Sea Serpent. The fleet was not as numerous as the other great fleets but they could act like little schools of sharks that smelled blood in the water.
"Worst of them all," Moqorro said, "which none know how they call upon these terrible creatures are the Sea Serpents. Massive beasts that can sink ships on their own tear through wood like paper. The true weapons of Elyria," Moqorro said, his voice laced with reverence.
Jon could now see the creatures in the fire, giant serpents, their bodies coiled in the water, their eyes glowing with a deep, eerie light.
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Taking it all in, the only comfort Jon could find was that the city relied upon the ocean greatly and that was its weakness. . The city had few resources beyond what the sea could provide. If an enemy were to block access to the sea or land forces were to invade, Elyria could be left vulnerable. The city had no large standing army like Volantis and it lacked the resources to sustain a prolonged war on land.
Despite these challenges, Elyria remained a powerful force.