Yes, another story. It's not like I'm making it because I want you to read it or anything. Baka...
A Different Game [ASOIAF/The Gamer]
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Winterfell (281 AC)
ryuan
From Zero to Hero!
Yes, another story. It's not like I'm making it because I want you to read it or anything. Baka.
Anyway, don't expect it to be all that serious. I mean, it's not exactly crack, but if you expect anything close to balance in the story you have another thing coming.
I looked over my room, sighing once more with yet another confirmation that no, this wasn't a dream.
My room was quite bare, with a desk with books and writing implements, a drawer, a bowl and a pitch of water for me to clean myself. It was fortunate that my room had internal heating due to the thermal waters that ran through the castle, because outside it was already snowing.
And technically this counts as summer to these people.
Dressing myself I washed my face afterwards, and I picked up the primitive toothbrush and my own egyptian inspired toothpaste and brushed my teeth. Even now people remark my white teeth and fresh breath with such simple thing, it hurts a little due to the formula but even the ruling family of this land uses it now considering the alternative. It's a bit expensive, but you're not supposed to waste it anyway.
Morning ritual done, I went out for work. There was much I had to do, and I felt like there was never enough time.
The castle itself felt like those you saw on Europe, but it was big in a way that no other medieval castle was. The walls of Winterfell were also warm, both from the warmth of the thermal waters and the warmth of the people inside. The inhabitants of the North were a hardy, but welcoming people so long as you worked hard and knew of the hardships of this land.
"Ah, Jeehan", said a male voice and I turned to see Rickard Stark the Lord of Winterfell, "it's good to see you already awake. Care to join me?"
I nodded to him with a smile of my own. "My days start early Lord Rickard", I said, "and if you're asking me to join you then it's a matter of state?"
He shrugged, "can't I ask a friend to break his fast with me without any hidden motives?"
I smirked at him. "You certainly can, but would you waste time like that instead of doing both at once?"
"Sharp as usual, I see", said the man, "still I simply wanted to eat with you. I woke up early today and I probably won't join my family for the morning meal."
"Alright, lead the way Rickard."
~~O~~
Breakfast was enjoyable, though I still miss things like rice on my diet, and jokingly I told him that I'd kill to have some rice. He looked serious for a moment when I said that. "You might have need to do that, and more besides."
Instantly I sobered up. "What do you want me to do?"
"I'd like for you to use your abilities to help in an endeavor of mine", he finally said after a few moments, "I need you to travel and bring back goods for the North", he finally said, "if it's only you traveling, and using your special ability you should be able to finish a task that would take years to decades in a few months."
"Sounds fair. Have you thought of my suggestions then? I rather not leave everything I was working here to chance while I travel the world."
He nodded. "I will start implementing the colleges across the land. I was skeptical at first I admit, but if having more educated people was what allowed you to live in a society that brought forth the changes for the North, I'm willing to give it a try."
Those changes include, the four crops rotation style farming technique and the use of watermills and windmills to power a small, but growing industry of timber, grain and paper production. So far there was only a few of those buildings near Winterfell as an experiment, but even now it was showing incredible promise.
"The main issue would be money", I had told Rickard before, "something I can more or less deal with for now, but it's not a trick we can use often since the crown will want to know where all those golden dragons are coming from."
I could also severely speed up productions and constructions of certain things, thanks to my many, many, many skills. Combined with my legendary intellect and memory, which allowed me to remember with frightening detail even half remembered topics from years ago and allowed me to speculate, research and reinvent things at a rate even a certified genius would find impossible, it made me into a one man industrial revolution.
Granted, to actually industrialize the region would require a lot of help, authority and resources that I was still gathering, but.
"It's only right to help the people that took me in", I said to Rickard while taking a sip of my not-coffee, "I wasn't that weak since I was a boy. Anybody and anything could have finished me."
"It was fortunate that we found you near Winterfell", said the lord of the North, "our house words 'Winter is coming' is both a warning to our enemies and a plea for cooperation in this land. It was only right to help someone that needs it", he said while taking a sip from his ale, "besides it worked out really well for my house to take you in, don't you agree?"
I grinned at him. "As far as a new life goes, working for what amounts to be the local king is a pretty sweet deal in my opinion."
He chuckled at my choice of words. "Don't let the mad king hear that, or he might wish your head off."
I snorted. "Let him try all he wants. So long as he doesn't try anything stupid he will stay on his health hazard he calls a throne."
Frankly I had no intentions of ever getting near what they call 'game of thrones'. Back in my world the countries of Europe tried at it with a dash of colonialism put into good measure, and see how that worked out in the end, with two world wars breaking out. The North is already big enough that if we simply develop it we can be the richest region of the continent, there's no need to involve ourselves in the mess down the neck.
But Rickard reasoning is also sound, he need allies and alliances to buy time for the North to become strong, to make new trade arrangements, to bring new wealth and people the the region. Focusing inwards is all well and good, but we don't exist in a vacuum. Still, there is much work to do and we should make sure to use this time of peace wisely.
Rickard shook his head, "I'm still awed by the kind of power you can bring forth Jeehan, it's nothing like the tales of old. What you have in hand is nothing less than the powers of a god."
Well, I did pushed past level two hundred a long time ago meaning I'm a veteran of the big leagues. On the other hand...
"I'm not as strong as I could be", I admitted to my benefactor and now friend, "the power you see me using is but a fraction of what I used to have."
When I landed on this world after being forcefully booted from Gaia by the MOTHERFUCKER I was back to square one for the most part. As a final gift from Gaia herself after I dealt with the MOTHERFUCKER, she jammed into my soul all the required power to run most of the power of The Gamer on my own. It was why I could level up, level up skills and for the most part retain my abilities, but certain things suffered.
I couldn't see the names, levels and titles of people I never meet before anymore, and my Observe ability was nerfed, requiring me to use it at touch range at first before being usable at range like before, yet I had to pay a mana cost to activate the skill.
Not only that but the general mana cost of all my skills went up by at least half as much, mostly because now I was the one fully powering the abilities without the help of Gaia.
My skills and level went back to one also, with most of my skills greyed out due to low stats to use them. I was really relieved that the Instant Dungeons could be still made, and I still had access to time dilatation dungeons, otherwise I would take forever to level up to a good enough degree.
As it stands, I'm back to level seventy after months of non-stop grinding, using the techniques I learned later in my life to speed up the process a bit.
"Still, I saw what you did with those wildlings some time back", said Rickard, "it's why there's an uneasy peace between them and the Night Watch now."
I shook my head. "Well, shock and awe only works so much, but I think the peace is more due to me forcing the issue of allowing the non-crazy wildlings to settle down near the wall without being attacked, allowing for them to trade with the Night's Watch and further down."
"I admit it was a bit unorthodox to force the issue with the Night's Watch, but your argument to use the allied wildlings, or freefolk as they like to call themselves, as a buffer zone against the crazy wildlings seen interesting enough. The politicking might also make some of the southern night brothers feel like home, or so the lord commander says."
I nodded before finishing my own not-coffee. "I will make preparations for my travels after I finish with my tasks and help settle things up here first. I shouldn't be away for long, unless I find really interesting things."
"Good. I will also start preparing for the journey to Harrenhal", he broke into a smile, "it will be a good opportunity to see Ned. Lyanna misses her brother a lot, did you know? She's even interested in meeting with her bethroted, thanks to your talk with her. I don't know what you said to her, but she's much more enthusiastic about the whole prospect than before."
"Oh, I just told her a few things about home, and I promised her that if Robert doesn't keep to his pants she have my permission to feed his balls to the wolves."
We both laughed at that for a few moments, before he looked at me.
"That's a joke, right?"
"There's a joke in there somewhere, yes."
Rickard muttered something about talking with Jon Arryn, and I only laughed harder.
Anyway, don't expect it to be all that serious. I mean, it's not exactly crack, but if you expect anything close to balance in the story you have another thing coming.
~~~~~~~~OOO~~~~~~~~
I looked over my room, sighing once more with yet another confirmation that no, this wasn't a dream.
My room was quite bare, with a desk with books and writing implements, a drawer, a bowl and a pitch of water for me to clean myself. It was fortunate that my room had internal heating due to the thermal waters that ran through the castle, because outside it was already snowing.
And technically this counts as summer to these people.
Dressing myself I washed my face afterwards, and I picked up the primitive toothbrush and my own egyptian inspired toothpaste and brushed my teeth. Even now people remark my white teeth and fresh breath with such simple thing, it hurts a little due to the formula but even the ruling family of this land uses it now considering the alternative. It's a bit expensive, but you're not supposed to waste it anyway.
Morning ritual done, I went out for work. There was much I had to do, and I felt like there was never enough time.
The castle itself felt like those you saw on Europe, but it was big in a way that no other medieval castle was. The walls of Winterfell were also warm, both from the warmth of the thermal waters and the warmth of the people inside. The inhabitants of the North were a hardy, but welcoming people so long as you worked hard and knew of the hardships of this land.
"Ah, Jeehan", said a male voice and I turned to see Rickard Stark the Lord of Winterfell, "it's good to see you already awake. Care to join me?"
I nodded to him with a smile of my own. "My days start early Lord Rickard", I said, "and if you're asking me to join you then it's a matter of state?"
He shrugged, "can't I ask a friend to break his fast with me without any hidden motives?"
I smirked at him. "You certainly can, but would you waste time like that instead of doing both at once?"
"Sharp as usual, I see", said the man, "still I simply wanted to eat with you. I woke up early today and I probably won't join my family for the morning meal."
"Alright, lead the way Rickard."
~~O~~
Breakfast was enjoyable, though I still miss things like rice on my diet, and jokingly I told him that I'd kill to have some rice. He looked serious for a moment when I said that. "You might have need to do that, and more besides."
Instantly I sobered up. "What do you want me to do?"
"I'd like for you to use your abilities to help in an endeavor of mine", he finally said after a few moments, "I need you to travel and bring back goods for the North", he finally said, "if it's only you traveling, and using your special ability you should be able to finish a task that would take years to decades in a few months."
"Sounds fair. Have you thought of my suggestions then? I rather not leave everything I was working here to chance while I travel the world."
He nodded. "I will start implementing the colleges across the land. I was skeptical at first I admit, but if having more educated people was what allowed you to live in a society that brought forth the changes for the North, I'm willing to give it a try."
Those changes include, the four crops rotation style farming technique and the use of watermills and windmills to power a small, but growing industry of timber, grain and paper production. So far there was only a few of those buildings near Winterfell as an experiment, but even now it was showing incredible promise.
"The main issue would be money", I had told Rickard before, "something I can more or less deal with for now, but it's not a trick we can use often since the crown will want to know where all those golden dragons are coming from."
I could also severely speed up productions and constructions of certain things, thanks to my many, many, many skills. Combined with my legendary intellect and memory, which allowed me to remember with frightening detail even half remembered topics from years ago and allowed me to speculate, research and reinvent things at a rate even a certified genius would find impossible, it made me into a one man industrial revolution.
Granted, to actually industrialize the region would require a lot of help, authority and resources that I was still gathering, but.
"It's only right to help the people that took me in", I said to Rickard while taking a sip of my not-coffee, "I wasn't that weak since I was a boy. Anybody and anything could have finished me."
"It was fortunate that we found you near Winterfell", said the lord of the North, "our house words 'Winter is coming' is both a warning to our enemies and a plea for cooperation in this land. It was only right to help someone that needs it", he said while taking a sip from his ale, "besides it worked out really well for my house to take you in, don't you agree?"
I grinned at him. "As far as a new life goes, working for what amounts to be the local king is a pretty sweet deal in my opinion."
He chuckled at my choice of words. "Don't let the mad king hear that, or he might wish your head off."
I snorted. "Let him try all he wants. So long as he doesn't try anything stupid he will stay on his health hazard he calls a throne."
Frankly I had no intentions of ever getting near what they call 'game of thrones'. Back in my world the countries of Europe tried at it with a dash of colonialism put into good measure, and see how that worked out in the end, with two world wars breaking out. The North is already big enough that if we simply develop it we can be the richest region of the continent, there's no need to involve ourselves in the mess down the neck.
But Rickard reasoning is also sound, he need allies and alliances to buy time for the North to become strong, to make new trade arrangements, to bring new wealth and people the the region. Focusing inwards is all well and good, but we don't exist in a vacuum. Still, there is much work to do and we should make sure to use this time of peace wisely.
Rickard shook his head, "I'm still awed by the kind of power you can bring forth Jeehan, it's nothing like the tales of old. What you have in hand is nothing less than the powers of a god."
Well, I did pushed past level two hundred a long time ago meaning I'm a veteran of the big leagues. On the other hand...
"I'm not as strong as I could be", I admitted to my benefactor and now friend, "the power you see me using is but a fraction of what I used to have."
When I landed on this world after being forcefully booted from Gaia by the MOTHERFUCKER I was back to square one for the most part. As a final gift from Gaia herself after I dealt with the MOTHERFUCKER, she jammed into my soul all the required power to run most of the power of The Gamer on my own. It was why I could level up, level up skills and for the most part retain my abilities, but certain things suffered.
I couldn't see the names, levels and titles of people I never meet before anymore, and my Observe ability was nerfed, requiring me to use it at touch range at first before being usable at range like before, yet I had to pay a mana cost to activate the skill.
Not only that but the general mana cost of all my skills went up by at least half as much, mostly because now I was the one fully powering the abilities without the help of Gaia.
My skills and level went back to one also, with most of my skills greyed out due to low stats to use them. I was really relieved that the Instant Dungeons could be still made, and I still had access to time dilatation dungeons, otherwise I would take forever to level up to a good enough degree.
As it stands, I'm back to level seventy after months of non-stop grinding, using the techniques I learned later in my life to speed up the process a bit.
"Still, I saw what you did with those wildlings some time back", said Rickard, "it's why there's an uneasy peace between them and the Night Watch now."
I shook my head. "Well, shock and awe only works so much, but I think the peace is more due to me forcing the issue of allowing the non-crazy wildlings to settle down near the wall without being attacked, allowing for them to trade with the Night's Watch and further down."
"I admit it was a bit unorthodox to force the issue with the Night's Watch, but your argument to use the allied wildlings, or freefolk as they like to call themselves, as a buffer zone against the crazy wildlings seen interesting enough. The politicking might also make some of the southern night brothers feel like home, or so the lord commander says."
I nodded before finishing my own not-coffee. "I will make preparations for my travels after I finish with my tasks and help settle things up here first. I shouldn't be away for long, unless I find really interesting things."
"Good. I will also start preparing for the journey to Harrenhal", he broke into a smile, "it will be a good opportunity to see Ned. Lyanna misses her brother a lot, did you know? She's even interested in meeting with her bethroted, thanks to your talk with her. I don't know what you said to her, but she's much more enthusiastic about the whole prospect than before."
"Oh, I just told her a few things about home, and I promised her that if Robert doesn't keep to his pants she have my permission to feed his balls to the wolves."
We both laughed at that for a few moments, before he looked at me.
"That's a joke, right?"
"There's a joke in there somewhere, yes."
Rickard muttered something about talking with Jon Arryn, and I only laughed harder.
Last edited:
NoisyMatchStar
Lord of all that is Purple
- Location
- Pittsburgh
Robert would just fall harder for her.
Unknow Land (Unknow Time)
ryuan
From Zero to Hero!
Was I dead?
"No my child, you still live." Said an unknown, yet at the same time familiar voice to me.
I opened my eyes and saw a beautiful woman in front of me. Immediately I realized something was different about her. Each time I blinked, her form shifted subtly, changing ethnicity, hair color, eye color, body shape and even age. Yet no matter how much she shifted, she had wild beauty to her giving an air of both raw lust and motherly love.
"Gaia", I said the first thing that came to mind, and the woman smiled.
"I must thank you, Han Jee-han, for ridding me of that threat. He would have caused much chaos and damage to the world if left to his own devices."
"I had my own, personal reasons to stop him", I replied to her, "it might sound callous, but I didn't do it for you."
Even with those words she had a look of understanding on her. "Yet it was because of your sacrifices the world isn't sundered. For that, you have my personal thanks. You did well my child."
I stared at her, being more affected by her praise than I thought I would. "Thank you, but this isn't a social call, is it?"
Looking around, I saw that I was in some kind of dark void. From time to time streaks of light would pass by, with colors that shouldn't exist, with shapes that aren't meant to be. I felt sore all over my body, which was an indicator of good news in my book since that meant I was still alive.
"No it isn't", she said with such sad tone and expression that stabbed me into the heart. "The one you fought threw you out from my grasp. I only had enough time to send this semi-sentient message to your direction, hoping that you would receive it. While I'm glad that I can help you, sadly by now you should be forever away from my grasp. I'm sorry my child."
I closed my eyes. Sun-Il, mom, dad, everyone...
Some of them had died before, while others were waiting for my return. I would never see them again, not even in a million lifetimes. In the end, the MOTHERFUCKER had the last laugh.
She must have noticed my shifting expression, since I felt someone hugging me. Opening my eyes I was greeted by two mounds on my vision, and suddenly I felt hot. My everything was hurting before, but now that I got some more stimulation it was like my body was on fire.
For entirely different reasons.
"Fear not my child", she said ignoring my situation, "I wouldn't allow for the one who helped me so much to simply witter away and die in the void. Even now I'm directing you to a world that can accommodate you, and using the last remnant of this power I will infuse you with my own essence, supercharging your soul and allowing you to use your powers in your new world."
I looked up to her, surprised. To be able to use my powers as a Natural Ability User even away from her? That was certainly a large blessing.
"As a reward for the services rendered, you Han Jee-han shall be empowered, and all those bearing your line shall have the same potential for greatness as you had." She placed her forehead on top of mine in an affectionate manner, "Go forth, live your life fully, and know that you had earned the favor of the planet twice over."
~~O~~
I drifted in and out of consciousness for some time, the few times I was aware I felt my everything hurt far worse than I ever felt before. Shadows and light danced on top of me, and the air was quite cold even if I was wrapped in thick blankets.
I don't know how long I was out, but eventually I opened my eyes feeling fresh as a daisy, and the familiar light blue panel was floating in front of me.
I stat up and stretched my back and I almost felt like a bone had popped back into place. First things first though.
"Status"
"Skills"
Looking down at my list of skill I realized that while they were still there they were greyed out. In games when a skill was visible but was greyed out that usually meant you need to unlock it. The sad thing is, all my skills save Gamer's Mind and Gamer's Body are like that. Not only that, but they were all back to level one.
And I took so many hours leveling them to maximum level in order to prestige them into new skills. All that hard work, gone. It was almost enough to make me cry. At least with my two main skills I should be back on top form after some time passes, and I won't be panicking in this new world.
Speaking of which, looking around the place looked quite old, for lack of better term. The furniture were well made antiques, and the room itself was made of polished stone like a castle. The bed had furs and linen on it, and for the first time I noticed I was wearing some kind of linen clothing, differently from my torn t-shirt and jeans I was wearing when I fought the MOTHERFUCKER.
Through a special action the skill [Observe] has been unlocked!
Error!
Gaia presence not foud.
Adjusting for internal emulation source.
Observe (Active) (Cost: 50mp) (Level 1)
A skill that allows the user to inspect and gather information from the targets.
Information Details: Very Low
Range: Touch
I frowned at the windows. I was somewhat expecting something like that since I wasn't in Gaia anymore, and was powering my abilities using my own soul now, but I didn't knew there was this much of a difference. There's hope that once I level it up enough one of my core skills it will regain some of it's functionality.
While I was musing those things the door to the room opened, and I saw an elderly man enter. He looked surprised to see me and I noticed something immediately: I couldn't see his name, level and title, only question marks floated above his head.
Certain games had a similar mechanic, so I wasn't all that surprised. Annoyed yes, but not surprised.
He opened his mouth, and started to say something that vaguely resembled english, but it felt wrong somehow. A few words were familiar, but overall it was nothing but gibberish to me.
"I don't understand", I said in korean to see if he was familiar with the language. He looked surprised for a moment, before saying something different. "I don't understand", I said once more in english to see if he could pick up something from it.
He tried what I thought were a couple more languages, before I shook my head. This wasn't working. Pointing at myself I said, "Han Jee-han".
He understood my intent quickly, pointing to himself. "Walys".
Instantly the some of the question marks on top of his head changed to 'Walys' in english lettering. He stood there for a few moments, waiting for me to continue.
We might be at it for a while.
"No my child, you still live." Said an unknown, yet at the same time familiar voice to me.
I opened my eyes and saw a beautiful woman in front of me. Immediately I realized something was different about her. Each time I blinked, her form shifted subtly, changing ethnicity, hair color, eye color, body shape and even age. Yet no matter how much she shifted, she had wild beauty to her giving an air of both raw lust and motherly love.
"Gaia", I said the first thing that came to mind, and the woman smiled.
"I must thank you, Han Jee-han, for ridding me of that threat. He would have caused much chaos and damage to the world if left to his own devices."
"I had my own, personal reasons to stop him", I replied to her, "it might sound callous, but I didn't do it for you."
Even with those words she had a look of understanding on her. "Yet it was because of your sacrifices the world isn't sundered. For that, you have my personal thanks. You did well my child."
I stared at her, being more affected by her praise than I thought I would. "Thank you, but this isn't a social call, is it?"
Looking around, I saw that I was in some kind of dark void. From time to time streaks of light would pass by, with colors that shouldn't exist, with shapes that aren't meant to be. I felt sore all over my body, which was an indicator of good news in my book since that meant I was still alive.
"No it isn't", she said with such sad tone and expression that stabbed me into the heart. "The one you fought threw you out from my grasp. I only had enough time to send this semi-sentient message to your direction, hoping that you would receive it. While I'm glad that I can help you, sadly by now you should be forever away from my grasp. I'm sorry my child."
I closed my eyes. Sun-Il, mom, dad, everyone...
Some of them had died before, while others were waiting for my return. I would never see them again, not even in a million lifetimes. In the end, the MOTHERFUCKER had the last laugh.
She must have noticed my shifting expression, since I felt someone hugging me. Opening my eyes I was greeted by two mounds on my vision, and suddenly I felt hot. My everything was hurting before, but now that I got some more stimulation it was like my body was on fire.
For entirely different reasons.
"Fear not my child", she said ignoring my situation, "I wouldn't allow for the one who helped me so much to simply witter away and die in the void. Even now I'm directing you to a world that can accommodate you, and using the last remnant of this power I will infuse you with my own essence, supercharging your soul and allowing you to use your powers in your new world."
I looked up to her, surprised. To be able to use my powers as a Natural Ability User even away from her? That was certainly a large blessing.
"As a reward for the services rendered, you Han Jee-han shall be empowered, and all those bearing your line shall have the same potential for greatness as you had." She placed her forehead on top of mine in an affectionate manner, "Go forth, live your life fully, and know that you had earned the favor of the planet twice over."
~~O~~
I drifted in and out of consciousness for some time, the few times I was aware I felt my everything hurt far worse than I ever felt before. Shadows and light danced on top of me, and the air was quite cold even if I was wrapped in thick blankets.
I don't know how long I was out, but eventually I opened my eyes feeling fresh as a daisy, and the familiar light blue panel was floating in front of me.
I stat up and stretched my back and I almost felt like a bone had popped back into place. First things first though.
"Status"
"Skills"
Looking down at my list of skill I realized that while they were still there they were greyed out. In games when a skill was visible but was greyed out that usually meant you need to unlock it. The sad thing is, all my skills save Gamer's Mind and Gamer's Body are like that. Not only that, but they were all back to level one.
And I took so many hours leveling them to maximum level in order to prestige them into new skills. All that hard work, gone. It was almost enough to make me cry. At least with my two main skills I should be back on top form after some time passes, and I won't be panicking in this new world.
Speaking of which, looking around the place looked quite old, for lack of better term. The furniture were well made antiques, and the room itself was made of polished stone like a castle. The bed had furs and linen on it, and for the first time I noticed I was wearing some kind of linen clothing, differently from my torn t-shirt and jeans I was wearing when I fought the MOTHERFUCKER.
Through a special action the skill [Observe] has been unlocked!
Error!
Gaia presence not foud.
Adjusting for internal emulation source.
Observe (Active) (Cost: 50mp) (Level 1)
A skill that allows the user to inspect and gather information from the targets.
Information Details: Very Low
Range: Touch
I frowned at the windows. I was somewhat expecting something like that since I wasn't in Gaia anymore, and was powering my abilities using my own soul now, but I didn't knew there was this much of a difference. There's hope that once I level it up enough one of my core skills it will regain some of it's functionality.
While I was musing those things the door to the room opened, and I saw an elderly man enter. He looked surprised to see me and I noticed something immediately: I couldn't see his name, level and title, only question marks floated above his head.
Certain games had a similar mechanic, so I wasn't all that surprised. Annoyed yes, but not surprised.
He opened his mouth, and started to say something that vaguely resembled english, but it felt wrong somehow. A few words were familiar, but overall it was nothing but gibberish to me.
"I don't understand", I said in korean to see if he was familiar with the language. He looked surprised for a moment, before saying something different. "I don't understand", I said once more in english to see if he could pick up something from it.
He tried what I thought were a couple more languages, before I shook my head. This wasn't working. Pointing at myself I said, "Han Jee-han".
He understood my intent quickly, pointing to himself. "Walys".
Instantly the some of the question marks on top of his head changed to 'Walys' in english lettering. He stood there for a few moments, waiting for me to continue.
We might be at it for a while.
- Location
- Ireland
Return to Winterfell (282 AC)
ryuan
From Zero to Hero!
My travels around Essos and beyond proved fruitful. They all accepted the obscene amount of gold I had with me, considering the gold I had couldn't be reliably spent in Westeros in large quantities without people asking questions.
With the gold I bought goods, seeds, secrets. Sadly I couldn't find any hardier life stock to use, and leveling up the animal husbandry skill I had recently acquired will be a bitch and half, but you can't always win I suppose.
Still I brought more than enough from my travels that we can start something back in the North. Specially because I had found them! Rice and Soy! With those two and my own culinary knowledge the North will have an interesting diet in the future, I'm sure.
Landing on the outskirts of Winterfell in order not to startle anyone, I made my walk towards the castle. As I reached the gates the soldier manning it looked surprised at seeing me, before opening the gates.
"Han Jeehan, it's good to see you back!" Said one of the soldiers, "the others had missed you."
"It's good to be back Harlaw", I said and the man brightened at me remembering his name. I kind of cheated with having an intelligence score above two hundred and his name tag floating above his head. "What did I missed while I was away?"
He hesitated for a moment, before averting his gaze. "I rather not say. Lord Rickard will probably talk with you soon enough."
Instantly I was put on guard. What exactly happened while I was away?
~~O~~
Rickard was nursing a glass of wine instead of his usual cup of ale when I entered his office.
"Jeehan, good to know you're back", he said in a tired tone. "How was your travels?"
"Very productive, but let's talk about that later. What happened? What's wrong?"
He downed the wine in single go, before sighing. "Remember the tourney at Harrenhal?"
"The one last year? What about it?"
"Remember when Rhaegar crowned my daughter as the queen of beauty?"
I frowned. Rhaegar had crowned Lyanna as the queen of beauty at the end of the tourney, and the crown prince was already married.
"How bad things went? Did Robert Baratheon do something reckless while I was away? Or Brandon? What about Lyanna?"
"Lyanna disappeared some time back", he said in a grave tone, "the primary suspect being Rhaegar Targaryen. When those news reached my son the fool turned away from Riverrun for his wedding and went to King's Landing. There he accused Rhaegar and the King took offense to that, and imprisoned him as a traitor", he said while raising a piece of parchment, "I just received a raven summoning me to King's Landing to answer for his crimes."
At once scenarios passed through my head, the memory of the last time I saw the King firmly on my mind, painting a very grim picture of the future. "I'm going with you." I said promptly.
He shook his head. "No, if you go Aerys will take that as a sign of aggression, and while I don't doubt you can fight your way out of the Red Keep, civil war will probably break out afterwards, which could also risk my daughter on top of being a disastrous event for the realm and the North."
"I'm fairly certain that you dying over this will also spark a civil war, which will also risk Lyanna regardless." I pointed out to the man.
He nodded, before filling his glass of wine once more. "And yet I fear that you simply showing up on the Red Keep itself will risk the life of my son, or did you forget the tourney?"
I suppressed a grimace. The King had heard rumors of a foreign mage living in the North that managed to subdue a large portion of the wildlings, wielding light as a weapon and commanding the very earth to do his bidding. Because of that he went ballistic when he heard I was in attendance of the tourney, demanding my arrest since clearly being in the general vicinity of himself meant I was going to kill him and it was all a North's plot.
It was only with quick thinking and making myself scarce for the rest of the tourney that we avoided an even worse scandal.
Still, I wasn't just going to let him walk there by himself. Bringing in my skill list I confirmed that the skills I wanted to use where there, and I'm certain I had more than enough stats to unlock them once more.
"Even then I'm not going to simply let you go there to be killed. I have a plan to aid you, and since it will take time for you to reach the Red Keep there should be plenty of time for my preparations to be done."
"You think you can pull it off, whatever you plan?"
I nodded. "If worst comes to worst, I will be prepared to aid you to escape. Unless of course you want me to finish off the king right then and there?"
He shook his head. "No, if a civil war is meant to be broken we will need the legitimacy brought by the mad king's actions in order to gather real allies. If we simply kill Aerys it will be nothing more than regicide and most, if not all other regions will fight against the North. I fear that even with your aid we wouldn't be able to repel such force if it came to that."
"You're going to use yourself as bait", I realized his plan, "and you're counting on my healing abilities in case things go wrong."
"You're as sharp as ever", said Rickard, this time with a smug expression on his face. "Though perhaps you are missing some pieces of the puzzle."
I frowned, going over his actions until now. It took me only long enough for Rickard to take another sip at his wine before I pointed accusingly at him. "You planned it all!" I said shocked at his actions. "Brandon marriage to the daughter of the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands, Ned fostering to the Vale, Lyanna betrothal to Robert! You were preparing for rebellion all along!"
He chuckled at my accusation. "Don't be so dramatic. I wasn't planning anything as bad as outright treason, I was only trying to gather as many allies as possible in order to spread the influence of the North towards the realm southern regions. For far too long the south had used the North without giving anything in return, I thought it was hight time that we started playing the game of thrones to win." He said before staring at the bottle of wine for a few moments. "Then you came along, and showed me the unexplored potential in the North. It made me think, and instead of using those alliances to play the game I would use them to make the North greater than ever, as a King of Winter should have done. Still, with Aerys on the throne it was inevitable that a pretext to rebellion would arise. I just thought he would do something stupid against someone else instead of my family, then I have the crown prince kidnap my daughter. Just shows you what I know."
I planted my face on my hands, and silently screamed. Lunatics, all of them. I wasn't unfamiliar with politics, nobody that got as far as I did could afford to be truly ignorant of politics, but this kind of shrewd politicking and risk taking is why we had two world wars and nearly got a third back in my world.
"Nevertheless", continued Rickard, "I'm glad that you are on my side. When I got the raven I feared for both of my children lives, and that I would place a heave burden on Brandon and Ned with my death. I'm far more calmer now that I know you are back and is willing to back me up."
"So all that talk about keeping me away from the King was a test?"
"No. I still think it is dangerous, but I saw you pull off many miracles in your stay here. If you say you can do it, then I trust you."
I looked at him, before I took a few steps forwards. Taking the bottle of wine I started chugging it down.
I was too sober for this shit.
With the gold I bought goods, seeds, secrets. Sadly I couldn't find any hardier life stock to use, and leveling up the animal husbandry skill I had recently acquired will be a bitch and half, but you can't always win I suppose.
Still I brought more than enough from my travels that we can start something back in the North. Specially because I had found them! Rice and Soy! With those two and my own culinary knowledge the North will have an interesting diet in the future, I'm sure.
Landing on the outskirts of Winterfell in order not to startle anyone, I made my walk towards the castle. As I reached the gates the soldier manning it looked surprised at seeing me, before opening the gates.
"Han Jeehan, it's good to see you back!" Said one of the soldiers, "the others had missed you."
"It's good to be back Harlaw", I said and the man brightened at me remembering his name. I kind of cheated with having an intelligence score above two hundred and his name tag floating above his head. "What did I missed while I was away?"
He hesitated for a moment, before averting his gaze. "I rather not say. Lord Rickard will probably talk with you soon enough."
Instantly I was put on guard. What exactly happened while I was away?
~~O~~
Rickard was nursing a glass of wine instead of his usual cup of ale when I entered his office.
"Jeehan, good to know you're back", he said in a tired tone. "How was your travels?"
"Very productive, but let's talk about that later. What happened? What's wrong?"
He downed the wine in single go, before sighing. "Remember the tourney at Harrenhal?"
"The one last year? What about it?"
"Remember when Rhaegar crowned my daughter as the queen of beauty?"
I frowned. Rhaegar had crowned Lyanna as the queen of beauty at the end of the tourney, and the crown prince was already married.
"How bad things went? Did Robert Baratheon do something reckless while I was away? Or Brandon? What about Lyanna?"
"Lyanna disappeared some time back", he said in a grave tone, "the primary suspect being Rhaegar Targaryen. When those news reached my son the fool turned away from Riverrun for his wedding and went to King's Landing. There he accused Rhaegar and the King took offense to that, and imprisoned him as a traitor", he said while raising a piece of parchment, "I just received a raven summoning me to King's Landing to answer for his crimes."
At once scenarios passed through my head, the memory of the last time I saw the King firmly on my mind, painting a very grim picture of the future. "I'm going with you." I said promptly.
He shook his head. "No, if you go Aerys will take that as a sign of aggression, and while I don't doubt you can fight your way out of the Red Keep, civil war will probably break out afterwards, which could also risk my daughter on top of being a disastrous event for the realm and the North."
"I'm fairly certain that you dying over this will also spark a civil war, which will also risk Lyanna regardless." I pointed out to the man.
He nodded, before filling his glass of wine once more. "And yet I fear that you simply showing up on the Red Keep itself will risk the life of my son, or did you forget the tourney?"
I suppressed a grimace. The King had heard rumors of a foreign mage living in the North that managed to subdue a large portion of the wildlings, wielding light as a weapon and commanding the very earth to do his bidding. Because of that he went ballistic when he heard I was in attendance of the tourney, demanding my arrest since clearly being in the general vicinity of himself meant I was going to kill him and it was all a North's plot.
It was only with quick thinking and making myself scarce for the rest of the tourney that we avoided an even worse scandal.
Still, I wasn't just going to let him walk there by himself. Bringing in my skill list I confirmed that the skills I wanted to use where there, and I'm certain I had more than enough stats to unlock them once more.
"Even then I'm not going to simply let you go there to be killed. I have a plan to aid you, and since it will take time for you to reach the Red Keep there should be plenty of time for my preparations to be done."
"You think you can pull it off, whatever you plan?"
I nodded. "If worst comes to worst, I will be prepared to aid you to escape. Unless of course you want me to finish off the king right then and there?"
He shook his head. "No, if a civil war is meant to be broken we will need the legitimacy brought by the mad king's actions in order to gather real allies. If we simply kill Aerys it will be nothing more than regicide and most, if not all other regions will fight against the North. I fear that even with your aid we wouldn't be able to repel such force if it came to that."
"You're going to use yourself as bait", I realized his plan, "and you're counting on my healing abilities in case things go wrong."
"You're as sharp as ever", said Rickard, this time with a smug expression on his face. "Though perhaps you are missing some pieces of the puzzle."
I frowned, going over his actions until now. It took me only long enough for Rickard to take another sip at his wine before I pointed accusingly at him. "You planned it all!" I said shocked at his actions. "Brandon marriage to the daughter of the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands, Ned fostering to the Vale, Lyanna betrothal to Robert! You were preparing for rebellion all along!"
He chuckled at my accusation. "Don't be so dramatic. I wasn't planning anything as bad as outright treason, I was only trying to gather as many allies as possible in order to spread the influence of the North towards the realm southern regions. For far too long the south had used the North without giving anything in return, I thought it was hight time that we started playing the game of thrones to win." He said before staring at the bottle of wine for a few moments. "Then you came along, and showed me the unexplored potential in the North. It made me think, and instead of using those alliances to play the game I would use them to make the North greater than ever, as a King of Winter should have done. Still, with Aerys on the throne it was inevitable that a pretext to rebellion would arise. I just thought he would do something stupid against someone else instead of my family, then I have the crown prince kidnap my daughter. Just shows you what I know."
I planted my face on my hands, and silently screamed. Lunatics, all of them. I wasn't unfamiliar with politics, nobody that got as far as I did could afford to be truly ignorant of politics, but this kind of shrewd politicking and risk taking is why we had two world wars and nearly got a third back in my world.
"Nevertheless", continued Rickard, "I'm glad that you are on my side. When I got the raven I feared for both of my children lives, and that I would place a heave burden on Brandon and Ned with my death. I'm far more calmer now that I know you are back and is willing to back me up."
"So all that talk about keeping me away from the King was a test?"
"No. I still think it is dangerous, but I saw you pull off many miracles in your stay here. If you say you can do it, then I trust you."
I looked at him, before I took a few steps forwards. Taking the bottle of wine I started chugging it down.
I was too sober for this shit.
Delerp Turtle
I CAST FIST!
- Location
- Middle, Capital of Nowhere
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Mastery of the skill [Poison Resistance] increases! [Poison Resistance]'s level goes up by one!
this looks interesting, I realize it's going to be a good stomp through but I am looking forward to it
- Location
- The Beginning of the End
watched.
A Pact of Wolves and Games (1) (279 AC)
ryuan
From Zero to Hero!
I never thought one of the first skills I would improve would be the infamous dish washing skill, but the cooks were all impressed by my ability to wash dishes in instants. We had a natural sponge and some soap to clean up everything, and it was only thanks to the thermal waters of the castle that meant we didn't had to clean everything with freezing cold water.
After I cleaned everything in the kitchen I went around the rooms to clean them up.
I was grateful for my hosts to allow me to stay here and work off my debt to them, that and I not only get paid but I have room and board, and access to some kind of education from the Maester, as he was surprised to see someone like me interested in learning how to read the local language. Speaking of language I managed to figure out the broader parts rather quickly, though I'm still not fully fluent yet, but that will soon change.
After finishing the clean up I would have the rest of the day for myself since I finish my tasks rather quickly, so I should be able to test my theories soon enough.
"Hey you!" Said a girl's voice from behind me. Turning around I saw little Lyanna Stark.
"Yes?" I said to the little girl, eyebrow raised. "What do you want, little lady?"
She didn't liked the way I said little lady, but refrained from retorting immediately. "Can you step closer please?"
Since she was being polite enough I did so, and when she asked me to knell I only raised an eyebrow before doing that. She placed both hands on my face, so she could clearly see my features.
"I never saw someone that looked like you."
"I heard every person is different from the other." I replied with a smirk, making him buff her cheeks and grabbing my own with her little hands.
"I meant I never saw someone with your features. Like it's easy to tell if someone have Stark, Lannister or Targaryen blood. But I never saw someone with eyes like yours."
"It's the features of my people", I answered her, "the Korean people. Those that lived in our part of the continent had somewhat similar features even if they came from different countries."
"Countries?"
"Another name for kingdoms, empires, republics, even city states."
I could see she didn't really understood but nodded anyway. "Did you came from somewhere on Essos?"
I shook my head, at the same time disentangling my face from her grip. "No, I came from a place far more distant. We, or I guess only me now, call it Gaia."
"Don't you want to go back there? Or are you a runaway slave? We don't like slavery here in Westeros, so you're safe in Winterfell if that's the case."
I stood up and petted the little girl, making her try to bat my hand from her head. "I wasn't a slave, but thanks for letting me stay here in Winterfell. Now little princess, there's more work for me to do so I must be going. Unless you plan on helping me?"
She turned around quite fast, and once she was a good paces away she turned back to me while sticking out her tongue. "I'm not a princess silly!" Before disappearing into a corner of the castle.
I simply shook my head, before getting back to my duties.
~~O~~
Hours later I was outside in an out of way place, before raising my hand in the air and gathering mana on my palm in order to create the illusion barrier. While for the most part Gaia did all the work with the illusion barriers, some people like the Grand Sorcerers could create dimensions of their own.
It was a good thing then, that by the time I had left Gaia I was rated as a Grand Sorcerer. Thank you The Gamer power.
The mana expanded form my hand, and suddenly all the sounds around me stopped. The whole castle became still, without the wind that was howling for a while now.
Through a special action the skill [ID Create] was unlocked!
Error! Unable to detect Gaia presence!
Using local emulation...
ID Create (Active) (Cost: Varies) (Level 1)
The ability to create illusion barriers, a separate realm of reality parallel to the real world.
ID Empty: 100mp
ID Zombies: 250mp
ID Ogres: 500mp
.
.
.
I looked at the skill prompt and nodded. By now I was already expecting something like that.
Fortunately making ID Escape didn't require mana, so I could level those two skills later like before, but first I need to put to a stop my current money problems, and nothing is more theurapeutic than bashing some zombies faces. I just need to enter and exit the barrier after I kill around fifty zombies or so.
Once I can deal with my monetary problems it will be time to truly sell my services to the local lord.
~~O~~
I was surprised how easy it was to make an appointment with the local lord. I thought they would be doing something like holding court or whatever and I would need to be crafty in order to book a private appointment with him. As it was, it didn't take long.
Once I entered his office I saw he had a cup of an ale while he perused some parchments and books. He looked up from them before taking his cup to take a sip. "Han Jeehan, I believe. What can I do for you today? I hope you have good reasons to see me, as you can see", he sweep his hand over his workload, "I'm a rather busy man."
I simply took a bag of money from my inventory, seemingly drawing it from thin air. He looked surprised at my casual display and looked at the contents of the bag.
There was a handful of gold coins, which considering the rates between copper and silver it was a lot of money for someone that was wearing rags when they came to the castle for the first time.
"How did you got them?" He asked, more curious than anything before I slowly showed him what I did.
"Status", I said before putting my fingers on the stat sheet and drawing some money from it, a few more gold dragons that I had farmed this week from the zombies. I had to kill a lot of them to get nearly this much.
Rickard was astonished when he saw me drawing another few handfuls of coins from thin air. "You can make gold form thin air?"
"That's both a surprisingly accurate, yet wrong way that my abilities work. I believe the word for what I am here in this world is 'maegi', though from where I came from we called ourselves Ability Users."
I let him further inspect the coins. "I am a learned man, lord Rickard", I said to the lord of Winterfell, "one that with time can both recall ancient knowledge and innovate far quicker than a genius can perform", I held my hand to him, as if making a deal, "would you like to buy my services and help bring progress and prosperity to your land?"
He looked between the coins in his hand and my offered hand. "And what do you want in return, maegi?"
"Please, if you were to call me something call me The Gamer", I told him my first, and most famous title back on Gaia, "and what I want is to have a hand in shaping your lands towards prosperity. Compared with my own country this place is rather undeveloped, almost poor if you forgive my choice of words. I know for certain that we can shape the future of your land to greatness never seen before, and I want to be part of it, I want to be remembered for it. I swear on the homeland I will never see again, that I will have my name engraved in the annals of history, which in turn will certainly allow your lands to take wide strides towards a brighter future. What do you think?"
He stood up, looking me deep in the eyes before looking down at my still extended hand.
"You don't want money, that much I can attest. You don't seen to want land or lordship in itself, but rather you want fame never seen before in the modern age. Fame the likes of Brandon the Builder." He said before grasping my arm. "And I must be a fool to believe in you and to give you a chance at this. Can you do it, Han Jeehan? Can you truly make the North great, like the Kings of Winter had done so in the past?"
"The North will become Greater", I said with a smirk, "even if I have to build wonders with my own two hands."
"Then show me, Han Jeehan, show me the extend of your power. Show me that you aren't making empty boasts."
My smirk somehow managed to get even more smug, and I nodded. Still grasping his arm I raised my other hand.
"ID Create!"
After I cleaned everything in the kitchen I went around the rooms to clean them up.
I was grateful for my hosts to allow me to stay here and work off my debt to them, that and I not only get paid but I have room and board, and access to some kind of education from the Maester, as he was surprised to see someone like me interested in learning how to read the local language. Speaking of language I managed to figure out the broader parts rather quickly, though I'm still not fully fluent yet, but that will soon change.
After finishing the clean up I would have the rest of the day for myself since I finish my tasks rather quickly, so I should be able to test my theories soon enough.
"Hey you!" Said a girl's voice from behind me. Turning around I saw little Lyanna Stark.
"Yes?" I said to the little girl, eyebrow raised. "What do you want, little lady?"
She didn't liked the way I said little lady, but refrained from retorting immediately. "Can you step closer please?"
Since she was being polite enough I did so, and when she asked me to knell I only raised an eyebrow before doing that. She placed both hands on my face, so she could clearly see my features.
"I never saw someone that looked like you."
"I heard every person is different from the other." I replied with a smirk, making him buff her cheeks and grabbing my own with her little hands.
"I meant I never saw someone with your features. Like it's easy to tell if someone have Stark, Lannister or Targaryen blood. But I never saw someone with eyes like yours."
"It's the features of my people", I answered her, "the Korean people. Those that lived in our part of the continent had somewhat similar features even if they came from different countries."
"Countries?"
"Another name for kingdoms, empires, republics, even city states."
I could see she didn't really understood but nodded anyway. "Did you came from somewhere on Essos?"
I shook my head, at the same time disentangling my face from her grip. "No, I came from a place far more distant. We, or I guess only me now, call it Gaia."
"Don't you want to go back there? Or are you a runaway slave? We don't like slavery here in Westeros, so you're safe in Winterfell if that's the case."
I stood up and petted the little girl, making her try to bat my hand from her head. "I wasn't a slave, but thanks for letting me stay here in Winterfell. Now little princess, there's more work for me to do so I must be going. Unless you plan on helping me?"
She turned around quite fast, and once she was a good paces away she turned back to me while sticking out her tongue. "I'm not a princess silly!" Before disappearing into a corner of the castle.
I simply shook my head, before getting back to my duties.
~~O~~
Hours later I was outside in an out of way place, before raising my hand in the air and gathering mana on my palm in order to create the illusion barrier. While for the most part Gaia did all the work with the illusion barriers, some people like the Grand Sorcerers could create dimensions of their own.
It was a good thing then, that by the time I had left Gaia I was rated as a Grand Sorcerer. Thank you The Gamer power.
The mana expanded form my hand, and suddenly all the sounds around me stopped. The whole castle became still, without the wind that was howling for a while now.
Through a special action the skill [ID Create] was unlocked!
Error! Unable to detect Gaia presence!
Using local emulation...
ID Create (Active) (Cost: Varies) (Level 1)
The ability to create illusion barriers, a separate realm of reality parallel to the real world.
ID Empty: 100mp
ID Zombies: 250mp
ID Ogres: 500mp
.
.
.
I looked at the skill prompt and nodded. By now I was already expecting something like that.
Fortunately making ID Escape didn't require mana, so I could level those two skills later like before, but first I need to put to a stop my current money problems, and nothing is more theurapeutic than bashing some zombies faces. I just need to enter and exit the barrier after I kill around fifty zombies or so.
Once I can deal with my monetary problems it will be time to truly sell my services to the local lord.
~~O~~
I was surprised how easy it was to make an appointment with the local lord. I thought they would be doing something like holding court or whatever and I would need to be crafty in order to book a private appointment with him. As it was, it didn't take long.
Once I entered his office I saw he had a cup of an ale while he perused some parchments and books. He looked up from them before taking his cup to take a sip. "Han Jeehan, I believe. What can I do for you today? I hope you have good reasons to see me, as you can see", he sweep his hand over his workload, "I'm a rather busy man."
I simply took a bag of money from my inventory, seemingly drawing it from thin air. He looked surprised at my casual display and looked at the contents of the bag.
There was a handful of gold coins, which considering the rates between copper and silver it was a lot of money for someone that was wearing rags when they came to the castle for the first time.
"How did you got them?" He asked, more curious than anything before I slowly showed him what I did.
"Status", I said before putting my fingers on the stat sheet and drawing some money from it, a few more gold dragons that I had farmed this week from the zombies. I had to kill a lot of them to get nearly this much.
Rickard was astonished when he saw me drawing another few handfuls of coins from thin air. "You can make gold form thin air?"
"That's both a surprisingly accurate, yet wrong way that my abilities work. I believe the word for what I am here in this world is 'maegi', though from where I came from we called ourselves Ability Users."
I let him further inspect the coins. "I am a learned man, lord Rickard", I said to the lord of Winterfell, "one that with time can both recall ancient knowledge and innovate far quicker than a genius can perform", I held my hand to him, as if making a deal, "would you like to buy my services and help bring progress and prosperity to your land?"
He looked between the coins in his hand and my offered hand. "And what do you want in return, maegi?"
"Please, if you were to call me something call me The Gamer", I told him my first, and most famous title back on Gaia, "and what I want is to have a hand in shaping your lands towards prosperity. Compared with my own country this place is rather undeveloped, almost poor if you forgive my choice of words. I know for certain that we can shape the future of your land to greatness never seen before, and I want to be part of it, I want to be remembered for it. I swear on the homeland I will never see again, that I will have my name engraved in the annals of history, which in turn will certainly allow your lands to take wide strides towards a brighter future. What do you think?"
He stood up, looking me deep in the eyes before looking down at my still extended hand.
"You don't want money, that much I can attest. You don't seen to want land or lordship in itself, but rather you want fame never seen before in the modern age. Fame the likes of Brandon the Builder." He said before grasping my arm. "And I must be a fool to believe in you and to give you a chance at this. Can you do it, Han Jeehan? Can you truly make the North great, like the Kings of Winter had done so in the past?"
"The North will become Greater", I said with a smirk, "even if I have to build wonders with my own two hands."
"Then show me, Han Jeehan, show me the extend of your power. Show me that you aren't making empty boasts."
My smirk somehow managed to get even more smug, and I nodded. Still grasping his arm I raised my other hand.
"ID Create!"
Hello Ryu, another Gamer xover ? cool 
please keep posting chapters.
Some questions, if you don't mind:
The party system still works ? if so you could transform the Starks in true titans amongst men. Just a few lvls, some extra stat points from training, and you got the full benefit package: fast, strong and wise. Just remember, don't let them use WIS as the dumpstat, they are fit to govern not to become idiots like in canon.
What about the skill books function ? maybe The Citadel should get an early visit, after all they are the focus of knowledge on this setting. Or so they think.
please keep posting chapters.Some questions, if you don't mind:
The party system still works ? if so you could transform the Starks in true titans amongst men. Just a few lvls, some extra stat points from training, and you got the full benefit package: fast, strong and wise. Just remember, don't let them use WIS as the dumpstat, they are fit to govern not to become idiots like in canon.
What about the skill books function ? maybe The Citadel should get an early visit, after all they are the focus of knowledge on this setting. Or so they think.
- Location
- PR
Give him a month or two and even that won't matter. Apparently years have passed so the lack of Gaia is not a big deterrent to his power, would not be surprised if he could curbstomp everyone and their grandmas with his pinky.
- Location
- East of Sun, West of Moon
Yes, but you can get a lot more story out of a month or two of him regaining his powers than you could from five minutes of him breaking the status quo over his knee.
This way, it'll take at least a couple of weeks.
Maybe show the Starks working to help their people in some way to motivate JeeHan to do this. Hell with Jeehan there maybe Rickard ignores his maester and focuses his energies on the North completely shutting down the Southern Marriage plan.
A Pact of Wolves and Games (2) (279 AC)
ryuan
From Zero to Hero!
Rickard gingerly opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was me. Instantly he jumped awake, fear and confusion clear on his face. He looked around, and realized that there was no typial sound coming from the castle, being empty of any and all life save for us two.
"It... it was real?"
"Yep", I said cheerfully to him, "what do you think?"
He tried to speak before holding his head on his hand, and I could her him mutter about stupid hangovers. "Can we go back to my office?"
"Yeah, it's a short walk there." I said lending my hand to him, helping him stand up.
~~O~~
"What happened?" Asked Rickard looking around the room, apparently without any changes. "Did you do something?"
"How about we go take a walk on the castle?" I said while opening the door.
With him following me it took some time until he realized that something was wrong. "Where's everyone? By this time the castle should be busy, yet I don't see anyone."
"They didn't went anywhere", I said as we continued our walk. We passed through many parts of the castle trying to find anyone else, from the staff to Lyanna and Benjen.
"Alright Jeehan, you made your point." Said Rickard while grabbing me by the collar. "Where are we?"
I batted away his hand, while trying to ignore the stench of his breath. He's awfully coherent for someone that drank this much. "We're on the castle. We never left. This", I swept my hand around us, "is what I call an illusion barrier. Basically, a world within a world. At the moment we're the only two living beings in the fake Winterfell."
Rickard looked panicked in his alcohol addled mind, rushing outside to see if it was really true. I followed him, until we reached the outside of the castle, where the guards were supposed to be watching the entrance.
"HEY!" He yelled, "ANYBODY THERE?" He called, no doubt wanting to be heard.
But nobody came.
He looked around, struggling with himself before he bent down and vomited on the ground. I made sure to stay far away enough not to be hit by the splash, until he lost strength and almost collapsed on the pile of his own vomit.
Well, that was a thing, I suppose.
~~O~~
"What made you drink that much?" I asked Rickard once we were back to the real Winterfell. "Are your lands in trouble or something? Did something happen?"
He simply shook his head. "It's the anniversary of the death of my wife", he finally said before washing down the vomit with some water.
"I'm sorry to hear that." I said in clear sympathy. He looked at me ready to speak, but he must saw something before closing his mouth and simply nodding.
"Thank you. So you were saying that other than those powers of yours, you were a learned man. But I just realized that I don't know much about you, other than the fact that you were found on the wolfswood some time back and was nursed to health by the Maester. Please tell me more about yourself Jeehan."
"I will, but please have an open mind when I tell you about my past. It might sound fantastic, but it is the truth."
He nodded, and I started giving me my story. I talked about myself, about Gaia, about how I ended up in this world. I gave him details of my life, my friends, my family, my powers, of my renown and feats back at home, of the war against the MOTHERFUCKER. I told him that I would never see my world again, and that I wanted to make the best of the situation I was in, to make this new world my new home instead of a place I was stranded forever.
He looked at me for a few moments before taking his water jug and sniffing a bit, looking at the jug of ale he still had left over before thinking better of it and drinking from the water.
"This is the kind of tale that not even the most deranged mummer could come up with." He finally said. "Very detailed too, for that matter. If I didn't had witnessed your abilities I would recommend you to write a book of stories based on your adventures. You still probably should, now that I think about it, but as a history book for the future of your family or house, if you reach that far."
He made himself more comfortable in his chair, before staring intently at me. "You said you were a learned man Jeehan, what does that entail?"
"Quality education was both free and mandatory to the children of our land, and basic education lasted until we were eighteen years old on average, then we could enter a university to learn more advanced topics and be ready for society. I have both a business and an engineering degree, and I read a lot of books on many subjects during my time, taking advantage of my enhanced intellect granted to my powers and skills. Because of that I can help 'uplift' your society. Better farming techniques and tools and ideas on how to expand and innovate in order for the people to not depend on me to keep progress going. Starting with your lands, then spreading to allies until we reach the whole country, we can make this land a better place."
He stayed silent for a moment. "You are fortunate then, that you talking with the Lord Paramount of the North and not merelly one of my vassals."
Something in what he said clicked in my head. "How... important are you actually? They just call you 'lord', with no mention of other titles, like duke or baron."
He mused for a bit, before going to a cabinet and taking a book. He went through a few pages until he opened into a local map. "This is the continent of Westeros", he said while pointing at me to the western part of the map, "And this is Essos", he said pointing to the eastern part. In another page Westeros was larger, and he pointed to a portion of the south. "Roughly this part is Dorne, it's mostly made of deserts and mountains." Then he pointed upwards on the map, before circling a very large portion of it, roughly half of the whole map, "this is the North."
If the continent starts with a desert, and goes up to until it gets this cold, that means this continent is as big as the americas or Africa? No, perhaps half of them should be more accurate. That means the whole north would be about as large as the United States or Brazil, at the very least.
That's a lot of land to manage.
"So you're the king?"
He let out a humorless chuckle. "If you had asked that question more than two and half centuries earlier, I would say yes, but the whole continent was unified by the Targaryens. We're now on the year two hundred seventy nine after Aegon's conquest, and his descendants rule the Seven Kingdoms from the Iron Throne."
"Looks like there's a lot for me to learn before we can start improving the North." I admitted, "and I need to regain my strength first in order to do that. I was originally thinking on finding some other place to live, paying with the gold and silver with me in order to train and learn more about the land."
"Don't worry about it", said Rickard, "you can stay in the castle for as long as you want, and you should have the freedom to do what you need in order to regain your strength. How long until you are able to start properly working in order to help the North?"
I paused for a moment, calculating how long for me to level up. "It will take a few months, but I can get started on a few things already while I train back into shape. I will see about writing a book about the advances we might implement first, but I will also take some time to properly prospect the land in order to find good places to improve on it, and I would also need to be more informed about what you already know of your current people and resources. Being a big land, I think it will take a while to get started."
"I suppose not even with your fantastic powers things are easy huh?" He said with a chuckle before opening a drawer and pulling a bottle of wine. "I was keeping this one for a special occasion, and I think the situation warrants it."
He gave me a glass of the wine before he raised his own in a toast. "For a brighter future."
"For a brighter future." I agreed with him.
"It... it was real?"
"Yep", I said cheerfully to him, "what do you think?"
He tried to speak before holding his head on his hand, and I could her him mutter about stupid hangovers. "Can we go back to my office?"
"Yeah, it's a short walk there." I said lending my hand to him, helping him stand up.
~~O~~
"What happened?" Asked Rickard looking around the room, apparently without any changes. "Did you do something?"
"How about we go take a walk on the castle?" I said while opening the door.
With him following me it took some time until he realized that something was wrong. "Where's everyone? By this time the castle should be busy, yet I don't see anyone."
"They didn't went anywhere", I said as we continued our walk. We passed through many parts of the castle trying to find anyone else, from the staff to Lyanna and Benjen.
"Alright Jeehan, you made your point." Said Rickard while grabbing me by the collar. "Where are we?"
I batted away his hand, while trying to ignore the stench of his breath. He's awfully coherent for someone that drank this much. "We're on the castle. We never left. This", I swept my hand around us, "is what I call an illusion barrier. Basically, a world within a world. At the moment we're the only two living beings in the fake Winterfell."
Rickard looked panicked in his alcohol addled mind, rushing outside to see if it was really true. I followed him, until we reached the outside of the castle, where the guards were supposed to be watching the entrance.
"HEY!" He yelled, "ANYBODY THERE?" He called, no doubt wanting to be heard.
But nobody came.
He looked around, struggling with himself before he bent down and vomited on the ground. I made sure to stay far away enough not to be hit by the splash, until he lost strength and almost collapsed on the pile of his own vomit.
Well, that was a thing, I suppose.
~~O~~
"What made you drink that much?" I asked Rickard once we were back to the real Winterfell. "Are your lands in trouble or something? Did something happen?"
He simply shook his head. "It's the anniversary of the death of my wife", he finally said before washing down the vomit with some water.
"I'm sorry to hear that." I said in clear sympathy. He looked at me ready to speak, but he must saw something before closing his mouth and simply nodding.
"Thank you. So you were saying that other than those powers of yours, you were a learned man. But I just realized that I don't know much about you, other than the fact that you were found on the wolfswood some time back and was nursed to health by the Maester. Please tell me more about yourself Jeehan."
"I will, but please have an open mind when I tell you about my past. It might sound fantastic, but it is the truth."
He nodded, and I started giving me my story. I talked about myself, about Gaia, about how I ended up in this world. I gave him details of my life, my friends, my family, my powers, of my renown and feats back at home, of the war against the MOTHERFUCKER. I told him that I would never see my world again, and that I wanted to make the best of the situation I was in, to make this new world my new home instead of a place I was stranded forever.
He looked at me for a few moments before taking his water jug and sniffing a bit, looking at the jug of ale he still had left over before thinking better of it and drinking from the water.
"This is the kind of tale that not even the most deranged mummer could come up with." He finally said. "Very detailed too, for that matter. If I didn't had witnessed your abilities I would recommend you to write a book of stories based on your adventures. You still probably should, now that I think about it, but as a history book for the future of your family or house, if you reach that far."
He made himself more comfortable in his chair, before staring intently at me. "You said you were a learned man Jeehan, what does that entail?"
"Quality education was both free and mandatory to the children of our land, and basic education lasted until we were eighteen years old on average, then we could enter a university to learn more advanced topics and be ready for society. I have both a business and an engineering degree, and I read a lot of books on many subjects during my time, taking advantage of my enhanced intellect granted to my powers and skills. Because of that I can help 'uplift' your society. Better farming techniques and tools and ideas on how to expand and innovate in order for the people to not depend on me to keep progress going. Starting with your lands, then spreading to allies until we reach the whole country, we can make this land a better place."
He stayed silent for a moment. "You are fortunate then, that you talking with the Lord Paramount of the North and not merelly one of my vassals."
Something in what he said clicked in my head. "How... important are you actually? They just call you 'lord', with no mention of other titles, like duke or baron."
He mused for a bit, before going to a cabinet and taking a book. He went through a few pages until he opened into a local map. "This is the continent of Westeros", he said while pointing at me to the western part of the map, "And this is Essos", he said pointing to the eastern part. In another page Westeros was larger, and he pointed to a portion of the south. "Roughly this part is Dorne, it's mostly made of deserts and mountains." Then he pointed upwards on the map, before circling a very large portion of it, roughly half of the whole map, "this is the North."
If the continent starts with a desert, and goes up to until it gets this cold, that means this continent is as big as the americas or Africa? No, perhaps half of them should be more accurate. That means the whole north would be about as large as the United States or Brazil, at the very least.
That's a lot of land to manage.
"So you're the king?"
He let out a humorless chuckle. "If you had asked that question more than two and half centuries earlier, I would say yes, but the whole continent was unified by the Targaryens. We're now on the year two hundred seventy nine after Aegon's conquest, and his descendants rule the Seven Kingdoms from the Iron Throne."
"Looks like there's a lot for me to learn before we can start improving the North." I admitted, "and I need to regain my strength first in order to do that. I was originally thinking on finding some other place to live, paying with the gold and silver with me in order to train and learn more about the land."
"Don't worry about it", said Rickard, "you can stay in the castle for as long as you want, and you should have the freedom to do what you need in order to regain your strength. How long until you are able to start properly working in order to help the North?"
I paused for a moment, calculating how long for me to level up. "It will take a few months, but I can get started on a few things already while I train back into shape. I will see about writing a book about the advances we might implement first, but I will also take some time to properly prospect the land in order to find good places to improve on it, and I would also need to be more informed about what you already know of your current people and resources. Being a big land, I think it will take a while to get started."
"I suppose not even with your fantastic powers things are easy huh?" He said with a chuckle before opening a drawer and pulling a bottle of wine. "I was keeping this one for a special occasion, and I think the situation warrants it."
He gave me a glass of the wine before he raised his own in a toast. "For a brighter future."
"For a brighter future." I agreed with him.
ryuan
From Zero to Hero!
And I never like when people holds back sensitive information for no reason, and writing about things that still didn't happened in canon The Gamer is a bit of a problem AND unnecessary padding to the story.
I'm not here to recount the whole of the webcomic to the readers, but there's also no reason why Rickard won't learn about everything that Jeehan did back in the past.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree on how that is supposed to go.
- Location
- PR
Same way there is no reason why he should learn about everything that Jeehan did back in the past.
It's not relevant to him or his family and it could be said that it can be 'painful' for Jeehan to recount his life's story and reopen old wounds like seeing his family die or something similar.
There is a fine line between the Tell everything to gain pity and keep everything in, to gain mysterious character traits.
ryuan
From Zero to Hero!
I see your point, but considering that Rickard have literally no context which to compare the things Jeehan can do, experienced or learned, so he ended up talking a lot.
Also, I'm fairly sure you can't really tell EVERYTHING!!! in just a single afternoon as you imply that Jeehan poured his entire life story in excruciating detail. I mean, telling him everything can just mean he gave him the basics on the unimportant bits, before giving more explanation on the more important bits. I didn't think I had to make it explicit which parts Jeehan focuses on his talk.
Anyone have any idea on how to tell "and he talked about the important bits" without sounding strange and without unnecessary padding?
Also, I'm fairly sure you can't really tell EVERYTHING!!! in just a single afternoon as you imply that Jeehan poured his entire life story in excruciating detail. I mean, telling him everything can just mean he gave him the basics on the unimportant bits, before giving more explanation on the more important bits. I didn't think I had to make it explicit which parts Jeehan focuses on his talk.
Anyone have any idea on how to tell "and he talked about the important bits" without sounding strange and without unnecessary padding?