"New Bronze Armor might not work. Would old armor be better?" Gendry speculated.
Gendry knew of at least two peoples who had created runes: the First Men and the ancient Valyrians.
The First Men arranged the letters of the Old Tongue into runes, while the Valyrians used their own High Valyrian.
These runes were generally carved into stone and other objects, and rarely written in books. Valyrian runes sometimes appeared on scrolls; the runes of the First Men were more primitive and natural.
"Magic is the driving force behind runes, while stones and implements are their vessels. Even people can be vessels," Gendry concluded. "The maker imbues them with magic and runes, but the caster must possess flame to activate the runes on the vessel."
If the human body was treated as a kind of flame, that flame would create kinetic energy, which would then drive the runes to display their power.
Gendry had the Blood of the Storm and the Blood of the True Dragon, powerful cheats for a Pyromancer. He had made himself the vessel outright, allowing him to use runes better. This path was bound to be long and complicated.
Although runes were rare, they did appear from time to time.
There were runes on the armor of the Bronze Kings, the crowns of the Kings of Winter, the horn Dragonbinder, the King Beyond the Wall's "false" Horn of Winter, and the golden ornaments of chieftains Beyond the Wall.
Even people today who could not use runes would carve them as symbols.
House Royce still added First Men runes to its silver-plated armor, and the golden bracelets the fat Illyrio had given Daenerys bore Valyrian runes. They simply did not seem to do anything.
"There are scrolls from Old Valyria on Dragonstone. And those suits of First