Seventh Moon of 284 AC, Stark Manor
POV: Steve Craftson
Steve had seen impressive builds before. But this?
Steve and Alex stood, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, before a sprawling stone manor that put every structure they'd ever built to shame. Towers with intricate crenellations. Iron golem guards standing silent at multiple locations. Walls of polished deep slate and dark oak framed with gleaming coloured glasswindows that shimmered in the daylight.
Inside, it only got worse.
Redstone lamps flickered on automatically as they entered. Pistons hissed quietly in the walls. Somewhere behind them, a mechanism clicked and began cycling — a clock, maybe? A timer? A trap? He didn't know, and that bothered him.
Chests stacked to the ceiling. Enchanted weapons with enchantments Steve had never seen on one single weapon. Dozens of maps, enchanted books, golden apples, and — Steve squinted — were those godapples?
Then there were the farms.
The wheat, carrot, and potato rows were flawless — sure — but those were just the surface. Beyond them: auto-smelters. Sugarcane machines. A bee sanctuary. A slime farm. A small iron farm with perfectly timed villager pods. Even a villager trading hall with labeled stations. Steve and Alex could only stare.
"All this time," Alex muttered, her voice hollow, "we could have built something like this..."
"Don't be too disheartened," Lyarra said airily as she passed a humming redstone relay, running her hand over the wall like one might a treasured painting. "We knew how to build these things even before coming here."
Steve turned. "...What do you mean?"
Lyarra froze for half a second — not quite enough to be suspicious, but just enough to be noticed. She opened her mouth, then shut it.
Torrhen, lounging on a basalt bench nearby, shrugged and chimed in. "Ahh, you know, I am very sorry about that. But please don't ask us how. We may have to take that secret to our graves."
A long pause. Alex looked at Steve. Steve looked at Alex. Something unspoken passed between them. They were players — born of this world, forged in it — but even so, they weren't owed everything.
"Fine," Steve said. Grudging. "But still... we had almost two years. We could have done better."
Torrhen looked up. "Wait. Are you saying you're only two years old?"
"Yeah... why?" Alex asked, blinking.
"Well... besides you looking a lot older than that, that's... about how long it's been since we died back home and became alive again," Torrhen said.
"Wait, what?" Steve asked, half-joking. "You died and came back? Respawned?"
"Well," said Alex with a shrug, "that is how it goes, right? You die and respawn at your bed."
"Not back in our world," Torrhen said, voice suddenly quieter. "Once you die there... you generally don't come back."
"Oh."
The silence stretched.
To break it, Lyarra turned and motioned. "Come on. There's one more thing."
They followed her into a side chamber made of blackstone and obsidian. A... portal? shimmered in a circular frame, pulsing with violet energy. It had style — symmetry, polish, even banners on either side bearing the twins' wolf sigil with a crimson crescent behind it.
"What is this?" asked a curious Alex.
"A portal" said Torrhen simply.
"To your home?"
"No we will show you that when we return to Westeros. This is to a another dimension a place called the nether. If you ever wondered how hell could look like, this should come atleast close to that" said Lyarra.
Steve exhaled, trying not to let the envy show. "You even built a portal to another dimension... all this time... we could've done more."
"No," Lyarra said, stepping through the flickering light, "you did what you could with what you knew. And now? Now you know more."
**Scene Break**
Eleventh Moon of 284 AC, Walrus Bay
pov Jorah Mormont
The wind howled off the Shivering Sea, sharp as a blade. Ice clung to Jorah's beard, and the salt air mixed with the scent of pine smoke and blood. Behind him, nestled between the cliffs and the frigid surf, stood the newly completed outpost: a squat stone-and-log fortification with a palisade, a watchtower, and a harbor just deep enough for the shallow-draught longships of Bear Island. It wasn't large, not yet, but it was strong—and it was theirs.
Jorah allowed himself a smile.
It had taken half the island's spare timber and nearly all of the summer's coin to fund it. But now, as he sat atop his garron and watched his men ready for another northern raid, he could feel it in his bones—House Mormont would rise again, and not through begging for southern gold or bending the knee to some fatter, richer lord. No, they would carve prosperity out of this frostbitten land themselves.
They rode north along the frozen coast, thirty strong. Hardened men of Bear Island wrapped in layers of fur and boiled leather, axes and shortbows at their backs. Beside Jorah, Captain Harwin knelt beside a patch of disturbed snow and rose with a grim nod. "Clansmen passed through here. Maybe a day ahead."
Jorah grunted approval. "Then we ride faster."
The trail led them west of the tall cliffs and into the bleak tundra, where the only shelter was jagged stone and frost-shattered trees. By nightfall, they found them—a wildling camp huddled in a gulley near a half-frozen stream.
No parley. No prisoners.
The Bear Islanders fell on them with axe and fury, descending from the rocks like snow-caked wraiths. The fight was brutal, close. The wildlings fought with desperation—spears and stone axes, rusted swords. One of them tore out Harwin's cheek with his teeth before dying on Jorah's blade. Another tried to flee, but an arrow caught him in the thigh, and a second ended him clean.
When it was done, Jorah counted seventeen dead wildlings. Two of his own had fallen, and five more were bloodied, but standing.
The spoils were meager—some furs, bone charms, a bit of smoked meat—but that wasn't the point anymore.
They made camp in the ruins of the wildling shelter, and as darkness fell and the stars wheeled overhead, the world changed.
It always did now in the lands beyond the wall.
Out past the edge of their firelight, in the black between the trees, they shimmered into view— groups of fleshy or skeletal undead. Some of the fleshy ones held weapons but they weren't the danger, no the skeletons (each wielding a bow) were far more dangerous even if their accuracy was... questionable.
The first time Jorah had seen one, back in the first raid, it had taken three men to bring a small group of them down—and only one of those men lived. But now his warriors knew how to fight them. Strike fast, strike true. Bury the blade in the chest or neck, or better yet, pelt them with arrows until they perished again.
Tonight, they did not wait.
Dozens of the creatures slowly entered the camp. Harwin, despite his wound, took one down with a hammer blow that shattered its skull like glass. Another was trapped in a net laced with barbed hooks, brought down screaming in a flash of violet sparks.
And when the night was over, they counted their bounty.
Stone axes that gleamed as if freshly hewn. Iron pickaxes that could be reworked. A golden helmet—solid gold, though oddly shaped—gleaming in the torchlight. Chainmail shirts that resisted rust, leather tunics lined with unknown stitching, and an iron sword, while short would fit one of the she bears of the island well.
Each item could fetch coin. Perhaps not much in Oldtown or King's Landing, but enough to keep Bear Island fed through winter. Enough to repair roofs, pay blacksmiths, buy salt and sailcloth.
Jorah stood over the campfire, watching his men laugh and drink, their bruises forgotten as they admired the strange trophies.
The monsters had made life beyond the Wall more dangerous. For the wildlings, it was a curse.
But for Bear Island?
A gift.
He turned toward the distant south, where his little fortress waited.
"Aye," he said under his breath, "let the others curse the dark. We'll make our fortune in it."
**Scene Break**
First Moon of 285 AC, King's Landing
POV Varys
Steel clanged in the Red Keep's training yard. Below the council chamber's arched windows, King Robert Baratheon traded hammer blows with Ser Barristan Selmy, sweat-slick and grinning like a madman. Bare-chested, bruised, and laughing, the king looked ten years younger than he had when he'd first slumped onto the Iron Throne.
Jon Arryn turned away from the window with a sigh. "He'll kill himself with that warhammer before the year's out."
The small council sat in full attendance save for the king himself, who had deemed sparring more important than governance—for the third day in a row... not to say he had attended the meetings before but still.
"Well," rasped Gyles Rosby, the newly minted Master of Coin, dabbing his nose with a scented cloth, "I must admit it is a nice change, especially for the coffers."
Jon raised a brow. "Explain."
"Since His Grace got that idea in his head—that nonsense about seeing monsters with his own eyes—the spending has slowed. Fewer tourneys. Fewer feasts. Fewer... entertainments."
"Are the coffers recovering?" asked Selwyn Tarth, his sea-weathered features betraying only mild curiosity. The Lord of Evenfall Tower had already made peace with his upcoming replacement, Jon knew. Selwyn had once remarked, 'Renly can have the laws once he is grown, I'll take the sea and my daughter's smile.' Besides, Renly was only 6 namedays old, Selwyn still had a lot of time to wring some profit out of the city before he had to leave.
Rosby wheezed a chuckle. "That would be a lie, Lord Selwyn—but they are suffering less. A marked improvement."
"I assume the king has decided which houses he shall visit on this... progress?" asked Varys, his smooth voice tinged with feigned innocence as he toyed with a ring.
Jon gave another sigh. "We ride north, with little detour. A night at Rosby—" Gyles gave a pleased sniff at that, "—then Harrenhal, Riverrun, Seagard, the Twins, Moat Cailin, Winterfell, and finally Castle Black."
"A modest itinerary," Stannis said, arms folded, face like carved stone. "My brother seems rather impatient to get a good look at these monsters in the wildling lands."
"Indeed," Varys murmured, fingers steepled, "though I wonder if His Grace will be all that excited once he sees them. Reports suggest the creatures are rather... underwhelming."
"With the exception of the Slendermen," Selwyn said dryly. "Those do make for a fine fireside tale."
"Indeed, my lord," said Varys. "And my little birds have been singing of sightings even on Bear Island."
"Could they have breached the Wall?" asked Grand Maester Pycelle, his voice heavy with concern.
"No," said Jon firmly. "There's been no sign of them on the mainland south of the Wall. Only the outer islands—Bear Island, probably Skagos and Skane. Still... I'd feel better if Robert weren't so determined to chase ghosts."
"They're not ghosts," Stannis muttered. "They're real enough. And dangerous."
"Dangerous or not," Jon said, "I worry less about the monsters... and more about Robert finding reason to stay in the North for moons, or worse, get himself killed chasing legends."
"Well," Varys said with a faint smile, "perhaps the cold will do him good."
Varys knew the others could not tell if that was a jest, a warning, or both. It was fun sometimes to confuse the others a little with his cryptic language.
The amusement didn't last. By the time the small council meeting had ended, Varys was reminded very painfully by looking out the window that things had developed rather sideways... but who could have expected magic making a rather spectacular return in the far north? By now reports had finally leaked out of the citadel that the glass candles were working again... though nobody apart from a very limited few knew how to do anything with them.
If the appearence of the monsters hadn't changed the situation at King's Landing and the behaviour of the king so severely then Varys would have never cared but although these things had never stepped a foot south of the wall (well on the mainland atleast), there were enough people seeking to go north at first that the population of flea bottom especially decreased dangerously fast for some time.
Only spreading the (thankfully true) tales of the difficulties anyone would face in the far north had allowed the small council to stop the tide threatening to erupt northwards.
Yes Varys liked seeing the smallfolk having prospects for a better future but he could not allow large numbers to migrate north. Most of the people that had migrated north did not remain and a large number of those chose not to return to their homelands, especially if threy had taken their families with them... and so the nearest option to settle again were the Stark lands and the North would undoubtedly be one of the kingdoms least excited about Aegon Blackfyre making a claim on the iron throne.
No the North could sadly not be allowed to flourish... atleast not until Varys gained the impression from his little birds there that the Starks had somehow become Targaryen loyalists and from the way Elia Martell seemed disgruntled that she had made no progress whatsoever on that front, Varys was certain that wouldn't happen unless something drastic happened.
Speaking of Elia Martell, Varys had still not found a reason that would convince the king to order her south. He had tried to do so before when the queen got pregnant but the prince was unfortunately a stillborn and Robert refused to order the Targaryens south until he had an heir that would actually survive.
It could take some time until the king was graced with a healthy heir but Varys had nothing but time... and then... then he could finally set his plans in motion.
**Scene Break**