Game of Thrones: StormBorn

289AC

He was in the midst of writing a letter to congratulate Lord Stannis for his victory at fair Isle when young Arthur knocked on his door, and he let the boy in after only a moment. It was too late in the day for the Ravens to fly anyhow.

"What is it?" he asked curiously, as the boy appeared to be quite out of breath, though the smile on his face belied the fact that he was likely here with good news.

"Ah, good, you're still awake. Come quickly." the boy almost lifted him from his chair. "I found the vault, but I don't want to touch anything that might crumble."

"The Targaryen Vault?" Cressen asked, putting his own feet down. That certainly was news worth getting excited about. Cressen staggered to his feet with the help of the boy.

"Where did you find it?"

"Under Aegon's Garden, It had a magic door, but we got the thing to open with a bit of wildfire."

"A magic door?" he looked questioningly at the boy. He had thought him smarter than that.

"You tell me what kind of lock you need fire to open and I'll stop calling it magic. Besides, Magic is just physics that we don't understand yet."

Cressen smiled at that, and gestured for the boy to lead on, which he did, eventually taking them to Aegon's Garden, a large part of which had been dug up. Several large wooden pallets were stacked to the side, likely waiting for the loot below to be extracted.

"We'll have to stand on one of those to be lowered down. It's quite a drop." The boy waved over the Frey Alchemist who seemed to be putting up some sort of pulley system on long stilts that stood over the pit. "Gerald, will we be ready to go soon?"

"Aye Arthur, we should be set."

Cressen took the liberty to stare down into the pit, he could see the so-called "Magic" door below, carved out of red dragonglass and clearly quite decorative. Its sides were quite smooth, and he could not deny that perhaps it might be more than ordinary, given the way that even now it stood directly upward despite the tug of the world. Below was a black pit that seemed to go quite a ways down, the sparse light from above making little visible in its depth.

"It seems quite ancient from the look of what I saw earlier. Possibly quite a bit older than our more recent Targaryen Emigrees." The child said, staring down alongside him. "Of course, it would likely have been easier to find had they not burned the old seneschal's records."

"That's certainly true." the old man admitted, before turning to the platform that was supposed to be carrying them, along with a couple of the young Baratheon's aides. "Are you certain of the stability of this lift?"

"Oh yeah, normally we use it to move Cannons up out of the foundry. It can lift an awful lot more than us."

"Very well then." He stepped onto the platform, following Arthur's example and grabbing hold of a rope.

"It will wobble a bit I wager, but just because we ourselves aren't precisely balanced."

'This is far too much exertion for an old man.' Cressen groaned, even as the thing began to descend. He was excited of course, for the ancient knowledge that might be found here, but that didn't quite make up for the stomach-wrenching lurches of the pallet in his mind, at least not while he was riding it.

To his side, the aides lit torches, and as they slowly descended Cressen got a look at exactly what they were dealing with.

"Seven Heavens…" He let out involuntarily.

The Vault was an enormous and damp chamber, a construction that few could hope to achieve in a single room, even with the greatest of architects. Its walls were polished dragonglass of a dozen colors, crisscrossing in patterns that seemed to follow the lines of its fused construction. Four colossal statues of collared dragons served as columns holding up the corners of the chamber, leering down at the descending lift, and the bottom glittered with what might well be Gold.

"This must predate the Dance…" Arthur said beside him. "I can't see any way they would be able to build those things without Dragonfire."

"It seems likely," Cressen said, nodding up at them. "But why was it built? This would be a major effort for the Targaryens even at the height of their power."

"Perhaps it was security, a reserve of wealth and knowledge to fall back on that was lost when they started murdering each other. I suppose it might also predate the conquest, but then I imagine that Aegon would have used it."

As they reached towards the bottom it became clear that the vault was indeed wealthy, and with more than just gold besides.

"My word…" Cressen's eyes immediately went to the neatly stacked rows upon rows of spherical stones at the back of the chamber. "Those are dragon eggs aren't they?"

While the Aides took a step back, almost as if in fear of the very idea, young Arthur merely glanced at them and turned away. "Yes, they indeed are, but they are of little use to me at the moment, and probably Fossilized besides. I'm sure some of them could be hatched in the right circumstances, but they are of little use to my father or I presently, at the very least."

Instead, Cressen felt a bit of shock at the quick dismissal as the boy made his way to ancient bookshelf upon which numerous ancient books rested, bound in tanned dragonhide by the looks of them. "Be careful with those books lad, paper ages quickly in the wet."

"I'm aware, but I doubt these have been affected that way, at least if my suspicions are correct. Sig, bring me that light."

Cressen moved to the boy's side as he brought the book up flat on an ancient table. In the light, its title was quite clear, written in a truly old Valyrian script. "Customs of the barbarians." He translated, and Arthur nodded along with him.

"If this isn't from Valyria itself it probably closely follows the doom."

The boy turned the cover back, sending a cascade of dusk into the air which sent him coughing over the book. Cressen reached out an arm, but Arthur waved him off. "I'm fine, I'll drink some water to clean my mouth out when we get back up."

The Maester nodded and looked to the page. "A copy of an original work by… Meernies of Ghis." He felt a chill run through his body. The book in his hands might well contain knowledge well over a thousand years old.

"The Founder of Meereen?" Arthur questioned, having shaken off his coughing fit. "That certainly is old."

"Yes, and who knows what else is on that shelf."

"Who knows what else is down here? You mean. Since we know the books aren't falling apart we have one of my major objectives down and then… aha." The boy climbed over a pile of Gold dragons as if they were nothing, moving towards the dragon eggs.

There, pressed against the feet of two of the great statues he stopped.

"Oh, My…" the boy said, apparently struck dumb by the sight before him.

Even as Cressen stumbled over the pile of coins to follow, he found that he felt much the same.

"I uh… I think that this collection here may be more Valyrian Steel than there is in Westeros."

Cressen stared wide-eyed along with the boy at the enormous amount of the legendary material, Not just swords, there were also daggers, axes, Glaives and polearms, even a suit of scale armor if his eyes didn't deceive him, all glistening in the torchlight with that distinctive pattern in the metal unique only to the craftsmanship.

The Awestruck silence was broken at last by Sig of all people, who spoke from behind him on the coin pile.

"Ayy, what in the hells? These ain't Dragons."