The next seven days.
First thing when Lyonel opened his eyes: the draw.
Day one.
White.
[Slight Cold-Proof: stamina spend in cold −5%.]
Day two.
White.
[Sense of Direction: chance of getting lost −20%.]
Day three.
Green.
[Basic Horsemanship: balance in the saddle +30%.]
Day four.
White.
[Sharp Hearing: range on faint sound +15%.]
Day five.
Green.
[Quick Healing: small wounds close +40%.]
Day six.
White.
[Steady Nerve: heart-rate swing under strain −10%.]
Day seven.
Blue.
[Gift of Tongues: new languages +50%.]
Seven cards.
Four white, two green, one blue.
He ran the row top to bottom.
His mouth twitched.
Cold.
Direction.
Seat.
Hearing.
Mend.
Nerve.
Tongue.
Each one alone was thin.
The whites especially.
Five percent off the cold?
Twenty percent less lost?
In a game you would not bend for that trash if it came free.
Stacked?
He counted on his fingers.
Seven days.
Body, sense, head, craft.
A thin coat on every part of him.
No layer thick.
Together he could feel the difference.
Washing his face he heard the guard change at the far end of the passage—ten feet cleaner than it had been.
Climbing the low wall in the yard, the burn in knee and wrist sat lighter than a week ago.
Last night he ran figures until late and Steady Nerve kept the grind from turning on him.
He pushed the pane down and stretched.
“This is saving coin.”
“A nickel a day looks like nothing.
Do it ten years.”
He was still turning the next move when the pane kicked.
Twice.
Hard.
More like a box dying and coming back.
[System]
Host trait count ≥ 10.
[System]
Trait Stacking System upgrading…
10%… 50%… 100%.
[System]
Upgrade complete.
Version: 2.0.
[System]
New function unlocked: Task System.
[System]
Tasks will issue from host behavior and core aims.
Completion: extra traits, stat bonuses, or special access.
Failure: negative feedback of varying weight.
Watch the clocks.
He read it twice.
Task System.
The father task had been a starter gift.
Done, gone.
After the upgrade the pane would throw work at him—dailies, weeklies.
Take it, finish it, or eat the fine.
He started to look closer.
The first line was already up.
[System]
New task issued.
[System]
Task: Son of the West
Win public support or allegiance from at least three bannermen of the West within three days.
Reward: Blue trait — Diplomatic Touch.
Failure: starting regard with all western bannermen −10.
He narrowed on the fine.
Minus ten.
All of them.
House regard sat on the purple trait.
Lannister Blood Resonance worked on Lannister blood.
Bannermen were not Lannisters.
Lords, knights, little names.
They ate Tywin’s face.
They had nothing on Lyonel.
Paint all of them negative…
He saw the yellow-tooth knight from the feast.
The West was full of that breed.
He stood and walked the room twice.
Three days.
Three bannermen.
Public.
Tight.
Not impossible.
The cut was who.
Dozens of western names, fat and thin.
Tywin’s hard men would not stand up for a dwarf.
He needed the edge of the map.
The ones who swung.
The ones the main current shoved aside.
He pulled last night’s roll out of Photographic Memory.
Names.
Lands.
Kin.
Tax for the last few years.
All of it in rows.
He could take any line he wanted.
South, near Brandhall: a small lord named Hest.
Thin holding.
Three years back a marriage row with the neighbor.
Tywin had taken the other man’s side.
Northeast, on the rim of the Silverhill veins: an old knight, Ser Garrick.
Forty years under the lion.
Poor ground.
Tax a fight every year.
And—
He put a ring around three.
Hest.
Garrick.
And a new-made merchant lord out of Lannisport trade—thin blood, a fief bought with coin, the kind old names hated most, and the kind that listened.
He pulled on a coat and went for the door.
A new bar sat upper right.
[System]
Task: Son of the West.
Progress: 0/3.
He opened the door.
A servant was wringing a rag over the flags, saw him, ducked to the wall.
Lyonel took the dry edge.
Three talks were already in order in his head.
Different shapes.
Three days.
Three bannermen.
Near first.
First: the merchant lord.
His ground sat in Lannisport proper.
Twenty minutes in a carriage.
Soft spot: no old name would look at him.
Last seat at every council.
When he spoke, no one heard.
When they voted, he followed.
Lyonel’s mouth bent.
Old-name blessing?
A trueborn Lannister standing up in public was as old-name as it got.
The other man would take that trade and smile.
Light at the end of the passage hit the crooked face.
On the pane four words changed color.
Task System went from grey to a hard blue, a wheel that had finally caught.
He cleared the gate of Casterly Rock and looked back.
The stone lion over the doors had its mouth open.
Teeth out.
Lyonel gave it a thumb.
“Wait.”
“Three days.
I’ll show you a canvas.”