No one guessed because Ars Hermetica can be from any setting that as a base is based on European myths, or even Egyptian myths considering 'thrice great' Hermes Trismegistus is supposed to be a syncretic combination of Hermes and Thoth, with some real life figures like Imhotep in there, and fantasy series love to incorporate him as a ancient wizard\or the book(s) written by him as a worldbuilding detail. Can be Harry Potter, can be Percy Jackson\Kane Chronicles, can be Fate, can be World of Darkness mages, can be hundreds of urban fantasies (including shit like the vampire diaries lol). Heck, it can be a medical drama, since Hermes is the god of doctors. Can, not will 😂.
It must be an obscure setting, because I don't think it was listed there at all. Though World of Darkness is close, and it is a setting based around the myths of Europe. And the Ars Hermetica are extremely central to it as well.
I honestly am starting to feel bad even trying to set up a guessing game, especially since it definitely won't be showing up until at least the chapter after the next one. I was so excited to get to it and now the story is fighting me on ever actually getting to it. It wants other stuff to happen right now, sadly.
Nah, it's ok to leave people guessing. If world of darkness is near, I'm guessing a tabletop thing. Ars Magica probably. It's indeed obscure, I only know of it from one or two review articles of other table top games referencing it while comparing magic systems.
I thought to make a broadsword, for fighting on the field
Much as I know the hammer is a nobler thing to wield
For though us humble tradesfolk choose a quiet life
The gods of war come to the door of the hammer and his wife
-Hammer and the Anvil,
The Longest Johns
Chapter Six: Hammer and the Anvil
Robb finished tucking his younger brother back into his bed. His proper bed, at that, not a simple sickbed. Mother might be furious when she's well enough to visit, but Bran's unconventional ambulation is undeniably effective. The Great Keep would be no obstacle to him, even now. He'd been taken out of whatever ridiculous mummer's garb he'd somehow got dressed in and placed into decent nightclothes for recovery.
Nevertheless, he still had his little wolf doll clutched in his arms. If his actual direwolf hadn't had plenty of space to rest on his bed, Robb imagined he would get jealous. The shadow that had given the master-at-arms a fright was sitting disconcertingly under the bed, the darkness beneath more noticeable than usual; it was unwilling to be dismissed by any save its caller.
He shook his head, looking at his little brother, so peaceful in sleep. Robb didn't follow much of what had happened after the meeting in mother's sickroom, but he knew Bran would need help getting through it. Whatever future he had seen, for it still rubbed Robb the wrong way that the future could be a place one could come from, it was worth averting.
He didn't care for many of the details Bran had shared.
Thankfully, the Trauma, as Bran had called it, seemed to grow dormant with his brother safely abed. Given what powers Bran had already demonstrated, Robb shuddered to think of what could be so powerful as to render his brother unconscious by its mere existence. Not to mention how much the Trauma had grown with it.
Robb hadn't needed the maester's spyglass to see the hideous growth, that time; a full tenth of its length added onto it once more. If it had kept growing at such a rate, it would soon cross the sun's path. No major celestial wanderer had entered the Trauma's path, as yet, but if it could not be fixed Robb knew it would not be long.
That was not a sight he was keen to see. He dearly hoped Bran had received something useful from that exchange.
A knocking brought him out of his thoughts. "Is he sorted, my lord?" Came the voice of Ser Rodrik. "Because we still have a situation to manage!"
Robb sighed; he had hoped Bran might awaken swiftly, yet if it keeps the sky quiet perhaps it is for the best he slept. Perhaps the rest shall do him well, and his abilities will lead him to a swift resolution of the Trauma.
He snorted. A man can hope.
Another round of knocking set him off towards the door. Opening it, he saw the still somewhat ruddy face of his father's master-at-arms. He seemed relieved that the stranger was receiving the attention he thought it deserved.
"Thank you, my lord. Swiftly, now, we mustn't tarry further." He started off, then stopped, suddenly quite wary. "Er, that- that thing isn;t coming along, right? You sure you trust Bran to it?"
"As sure as if he conjured it forth himself." Robb said, wryly. "On account of that being what happened."
"Don't like it, either way. A sword without a hilt, that magic stuff is." He started off again, and Robb followed after.
"Any weapon is worth the risk in desperate straits, Ser."
"Aye, you've the right of that, lad. Doesn't mean I like it any better."
"Nor I, Ser. All the less so for how it's my brother entangled with it all."
The knight simply nodded, for he too would brave any storm if it was kin that brought it upon them, even incidentally. Northmen knew the value of family.
Exiting the keep, Rodrik set off to the south.
"Ser? Was this stranger not spotted near the Broken Keep, and this odd building?"
"Aye," he replied, not stopping. Robb had no choice but to keep up. "But a man of mine came by, said our man had talked his way 'round into Mikken's territory. They've got the building on watch, so we're off to meet with our guest."
The smithy? Stranger and stranger. Robb could think of one-and–a-hundred reasons for a stranger's sudden appearance in Winterfell, and frankly Mikken would not have crossed into any of them.
"Have you any idea why?"
"Not a one, my lord. We'll just have to ask the man ourselves."
They marched in silence across the grounds to the south wall, where Mikken's smithy stood proudly near the gate. From the building came the usual sounds of a blacksmith, the clash of metal against hot metal, the clanging having a nearly musical pattern to it.
The musicality of it was enhanced by the faint sounds of singing ringing out above it.Robb looked at his companion: Ser Rodrik had little idea what it could be either, by his countenance. As they came closer, words started to form themselves from the noise, making the song known to the visitors.
"I thought to make a horseshoe and asked my hammer thus
He said, 'I'll ask the anvil what you require of us'
The hammer asked the anvil and she at once agreed
That they should work together in the way that I decreed!
And it's sparks a-flying, passion strong!
I am the blacksmith singing
The hammer and the anvil song!"
"A work song, mayhap?" mused Ser Rodrik. "It bears a resemblance to a sailor's chant, but for a smithy's trade?"
Entering into the smith's abode, the two were struck by a peculiar sight: Mikken the smith, a wide smile on his face, working in tandem at the anvil with Rodrik's stranger. The both of them were belting out the verses and hammering in time with the melody, striking one after the other in the creation of a broadsword blade.
Mikken's newfound friend was a strange one indeed: stout about his tummy, shorter than Rodrik by a head, gray of temple, thin of hair, with a bulbous nose and a broad beard, much of him was familiar. Yet his ears were strangely pointed, in a manner Robb had never seen on a man or woman in Westeros.
He broke the verse as he caught sight of the two entering the smithy, and Mikken took over the piece smoothly, quitting the song as well.
"Hail, there, lads! Come on the Holder's behalf, have ye?"
"I beg your pardon?" Robb said. There was something undeniably common about the strange smith's manner of speech. Did he not know he was in lordly company?
"You know, the Holder o' the Grimoire?" He squinted at Robb. "You 'ave seen the thing, right? Bloody hard to miss, innit?" Of course this also involved his brother. Seemed every little thing since the world turned upside-down had, in some fashion.
"May I ask how my brother was involved with your… appearance?"
The long-eared man grinned. "Ah, 'is kin, is ye? Very good, indeed. And it was 'im what called me!" Robb frowned.
"I rather think my brother would have mentioned it, if he had."
"Well, like as not it weren't conscious, ye see?" He paused for a moment, watching Mikken quench the blade. "Good lad, good. Anyhow, as 'twas explained to me, sometimes the thing answers to conscious need or want, and sometimes it may well do whatever the hell it wants. Unpredictable, ye see, like so much o' magic is. The Grimoire decided he needed me, so 'ere I be."
"And who are you, exactly?" Cut in Ser Rodrik. The strange smith looked abashed for a bit.
"Ah, Din'ssake, where's me manners?" He futilely attempted to brush off the soot from his hands onto his apron, and held his arm out in greeting. "Ah'm Jorum, Master Smitty. Sworn to the service of the Holder o' the Grimoire, whosoever 'e be." Rodrik clasped the proffered hand warily.
"And what manner of service do you provide?" Robb asked. Jorum looked at Robb like a particularly dull hunting dog.
"Ye deaf, lad? I'm a smitty. I smith things." Robb refused to feel embarrassment here, even as he felt the flush climbing his neck.
"Nearly everything else that damned book has provided has been strange, otherworldly! I do not think your purpose is so simple as 'smithy'." The smith grinned at that.
"Ye'd be right in that, lad. A tack sharper than most, then?" He gestured to his tools. "Ah'm a smitty true, but me expertise lies in enchanted weapons. The mergin' of 'em, bindin' together power to power, a greater 'ole from lesser blades!" His tone was reverent, to a degree beyond what pride most craftsmen take in their skills. "So great was I, in this, that Din Herself chose me for this task!"
"Din?" Was this some foreign deity? Robb hoped he wasn't as itinerant as some of the septons could get.
"Ah, ye wouldn't know the Sisters, would ye?" He grinned again, lines on his face suggesting such was his natural expression. "Ah'd love to engage in a spot o' theology, but ah'm eager to meet the Holder I been called fer!"
"He's… indisposed, at the moment." Jorum's smile shrunk slightly, and he nodded.
"Ah, I see. Bit off a tad more than 'e could chew fer the nonce, did 'e? Must be new to all this." He shook his head. "Bah, I ain't fer the whole 'mentor' business, never were good with the teachin'. Never had an apprentice last the moon under me. Still, needs must."
Turning to where Mikken was set about tempering the blade they'd been working on, Jorum called, "You gon' be alright on yer own, lad?" Mikken snorted.
"I told you once you old codger, I ain't no fresh-faced apprentice! It's my smithing what keeps this castle, Jorum!"
"Show me a blade with an ounce a' magic in her, and I might agree wit' ye!" He grinned.
"We're the same bloody age, ya bastard!" Jorum burst into laughter at this, and Mikken wasn't far behind. Mikken waved his new friend off with a smile. The jolly smith turned back round to Robb and Rodrik.
"Right, then, let me show where 'tis Ah'm settin' up." He started off out of Mikken's forge without so much as a 'by your leave'. The sheer familiarity this smith was assuming was definitely starting to rankle both men, but they set after him regardless. He led the group nothwards, the route Robb recognised as leading to the Broken Tower.
"I'm not sure we've agreed to let you stay, just yet." Ser Rodrik said, a tad harsher than was necessary. Jorum's smile never faltered, however.
"T' be quite honest, wit' ye, milord, yer not the one wit' any say in the matter, not even if ye were Lord o' this 'ole keep."
"I beg your pardon!?" Robb repeated.
"No offense intended, o' course, but yer not the Holder. I serve yer brother, indisposed as 'e is, an' none else."
"I'll have you know," Robb said, steel and ice in his voice, "that my father is, indeed, Lord of Winterfell."
"Is 'e, now?" Jorum mused. "Well, 'tis nice to know the Holder is a noble o' some sort. Makes some things easier, not startin' from the ground up, ye know?"
Robb just glared at him, before Jorum got the intended message.
"Ah, let me rephrase, then. It wouldn't matter if ye were the Gods themselves come down t' tell me t' bugger off, because I ain't leavin' wit'out the say-so o' the Holder." His loyalty would be inspiring if his impudence weren't so irritating.
"I could cut you down, here and now, for those words!" Said Ser Rodrik, his loyalty showing through in his fury. Jorum nodded, happily.
"Aye, ye could. T'wouldn't matter o' course, but ye could." What?
"What do you mean 'it wouldn't matter'? Do you not value your own life?" Robb blurted out, curiosity overpowering his earlier indignation.
"I mean only what I say, milord. T'wouldn't matter. By the Grace o' Din and the Power o' the Grimoire, I serve 'til I ain't needed no more. Cut me down one morn, Ah'd be back wit' the sunrise!" He's a lunatic, Robb decided. Even the magic he'd seen so far couldn't possibly allow for such a circumstance.
"You're mad!" barked Rodrik. "Death is final, and has always been thus! Even the Old and New Gods agree on such!" Jorum grinned.
"Well, who said I was alive t' begin wit'?" Seeing the disconcerted looks on their faces, the smith burst out in laughter. "I kid, I kid, o' course Ah'm alive, flesh and blood just the same as ye. But I have died, once already."Rodrik seemed to have his fill of this nonsense, but Robb…
"How?" Jorum smiled a small, somber smile.
"Old age, me lad. I look old now? Last time I looked this good was a full score o' years ago." His eyes grew distant. "But don't feel bad for that, lad. I was old, but happy, surrounded by me children, an' their children, and even me children's children's get! Not everyone gets that much. But after I passed…." He sighed. "Oh, how wondrous 'twas t' meet me patron, the Goddess who'd held me faith me 'ole life, Din Herself!"
"Should you not be resting then? In whatever afterworld she promises?"
Rodrik scoffed. "My lord, you cannot truly be entertaining this farce!"
"Bah! Rest is fer the weak! Told 'er such, meself!" He grinned fondly at that memory. "Din appreciates a man what don't let his fire dim, and she proffered an alternative. To serve in death, as I 'ad in life, in a land far beyond ol' Hyrule. A place even Her Power could not touch."
"Does that not frighten you?" Robb asked, entranced. "To be beyond the reach of your Goddess, should something go awry?" Jorum chuckled softly.
"Lad, 'tis one thing to have faith in a Power far greater than yerself. Having that faith returned?" He sighed. "Oh, 'tis a feeling beyond compare. Din trusts me, lad. Enough to not do 'er any wrong while abroad, to keep 'er faith through thick and thin, and do me duty as Ah'd always done. A grand thing, 'tis, to have the Goddess believin' in ye."
"Grand. A zealous madman. Exactly what your brother needs." Rodrik bit out.
"Ser Rodrik-"
"Ah! We've arrived! Come in, come in, get the grand tour! 'Tain't much, but it's my smitty!"
It was true, they had arrived near the base of the Broken Tower, but something new was there as well. Watched over by a small squad of guardsmen, a small building of peculiar style sat abreast the Tower. A squat thing, with base of cobbled stone and walls of brickwork, and topped by a red tiling of some kind.
Strewn about were the tools of a blacksmith's trade, well worn and well-kept. The guards nodded warily at Jorum as he made his way into his abode. They filed in after Robb and Rodrik.
"So tell me, Jorum, why exactly was your forge planted here?"
"Well, seems t' me that the Holder is gonna set up shop hereabouts."
"How could you possibly know that, when you've never even seen him?" Rodrik demanded. The smith grinned.
"Well, Ah'm 'ere, ain't I?"
"That hardly makes any-" Robb was distracted from the debate by a rather unpleasant noise, that drew him to rush for the window.
"No," he groaned. "In his sleep!?"
Indeed, the Trauma was again quaking. Bran's unconsciousness had brought them only a few hours reprieve, if that. Luckily, it settled quickly. The maester likely recorded the growth from his study, but Robb was more concerned with his brother.
"My lord?" Ser Rodrik called. "Is aught amiss?"
"We need to check on Bran. Now."
"Little Holder might be in a spot o' trouble, is it?" Jorum grimaced, the expression unusual on his jolly. "Best come along then."
"Absolutely not!" Barked the knight.
"Ser, we haven't the time for debate! Bring Jorum, he might be useful!" Robb ran out ahead of them, his course set on the Great Keep.
He could only hope Bran was alright.
The forest burned, faces weeping bloody sap were screaming in agony. The stags, the wolves, the krakens and the vipers, all creatures of the realm lay slain, burned, mutilated.
Castles fell like wooden blocks; the sun and moon devoured each other.
Well, doesn't this look familiar.
The past was clouded, the future uncertain, and terrible power wound its way through the realm of men and gods alike.
The Seven appeared shattered, while the Old Gods damned all with their silence.
What is this, the fifth, sixth night we've done this?
Dark things swept through the oceans as fire the color of blood rose into a fearsome visage, domineering all in its path.
Beasts did battle with winter storms and strange stars loomed over distant skies.
But this time…
A crow bearing three terrible, burning eyes looked upon me, one eye full of wretched knowledge and all three brimming with anger and hatred. It cried out, even as its beak descended with intent to tear my flesh asunder. I tried to raise my arms in defense, but they were like leaden clubs at my side.
I raised my winged arms in defiance, monstrous vitality granting me strength. The crow squawked in outrage, even as it tore at my feathers. I kicked back with my own taloned foot, for he was no longer the only one with claws here. It flapped back, out of reach, aborting its own attack.
HOW!? it cried, HOW ARE YOU SO DEFIANT?!
I am stronger now, teacher, I said to him. Strong enough to resist you.
YOU WILL NEVER BE STRONG ENOUGH, DEMON-CHILD. Lambasted the crow. NOT FOR WHAT IS COMING.
I have seen Westeros through the Long Night once, I countered. It will be no harder a second time.
FOOL CHILD! MONSTER IN MAN-SKIN! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS COMING, DO YOU!?
Then what, Bloodraven? The Ironborn, or R'hllor's priests? Surely, they will be no match for one who has seen their rise, nor would they match the might of dragons!
A familiar presence was pulsing, demanding entrance. The time was right, yet I could not be distracted from this exchange. I pleaded with the Grimoire for a little more time. I could feel the strain it was putting on my mind, keeping the connection open; I must be swift. I gestured to the world spread out below us, frozen in a metaphorical tableau.
I see no danger upon this earth that cannot be handled, with the power I may bring to bear. The teachings I had gained with the last opening had yet to settle fully, yet I knew their worth: Spells of power that could change the fate of kingdoms.
NOT THE EARTH, DAMNED FOOL. LOOK HIGHER!
I tore my gaze away from the earth to gaze upon the heavens, and gasped. I had seen the Trauma in the waking world, but here… It was even more horrifying. A bloody, gaping wound, such as a barbed arrow might leave through a man's torso, torn across the celestial sphere. Through it, I could see…
I could SEE
i CouLD SeE…
I tore my eyes away from the gate, for I knew it was a gate as much as a wound. There were implications to such knowledge, and the understanding was fading fast. I could choose to pursue it where it lead, but then…
YOU SEE NOW!? THE EXTENT OF THE DAMAGE YOU'VE WROUGHT!? The crow frothed in anger. The pressure was mounting, a choice needed to be made. Win this battle, or understand the nature of my wrongdoing…
NOW SIT STILL AND LET ME GUT YOU BEFORE YOU CAN DO ANY MORE HARM!
DAmn it, the choice was made for me.
Grimoire, please! I reached out to the hole in the world, carefully not looking at it. Grant me the power to stave off mine enemy!
The grotesque thing in the sky pulsed at my words, and light like blood, or perhaps blood like light came streaming out from within. Each droplet exacerbated the damage wrought, and flooded into me.
NO! STOP THIS! YOU WILL DOOM US ALL IF THIS CONTINUES!
I could feel it so much clearer here, beyond the reach of my body's limitations. The pain was still present, yes, but generalized into a full-body burning sensation rather than the crippling headache. Bloodraven dived down towards me, catching me in the torso and pushing us both down towards the earth, before a sudden sensation of breaking glass caught the both of us, and dropped us.
Strange, dark winds buffeted us as we fell, the cries of strange beasts ringing in my ears. Still the crow clawed at me, even as we fell through heavy stoneworks and distorted beasts in what seemed to be an infinite pit. I knew an end must come eventually, so I closed my eyes and awaited the waking world.
When again my eyes opened, I was in the maester's study. Yet I was dreaming still, surely. My legs were functional, once more. In fact, as I thought this, I realized my legs had always worked in the dreaming, else I would not have been able to kick at the crow!
I took a moment to luxuriate in the feeling, before looking about the new dreamscape. Bloodraven seemed absent from this area, but he couldn't be far away.
It was a more solid thing than was usual for the crow-dreams. Usually things were far more malleable, changing at even the slightest thought and steeped in metaphor. Yet if it were not for my ambulatory abilities, I would likely assume I'd awoken.
On closer inspection, while it was recognisably Luwin's study, it was also… strange. The books on the shelves seemed exaggerated in size, and the clutter was significantly worse than the maester would ever truly allow it to get. It's a little like…
Like how I used to imagine the place, in my true youth. If that is the case, the castle should be easy enough to navigate, for I knew it quite well in those days. Leaving the study, I was accosted by a staircase that seemed half a size too big for comfort. I could've just levitated down, but I wasn't going to pass up a chance to stretch my legs while I had them. Striding unsteadily downstairs, I eventually found my way outside.
I could only describe it as 'Winterfell, as rendered by an artist who'd never been North'. The towers were exaggeratedly tall, the walls as well, and the grounds several times larger than they had a right to be. As if someone were illustrating an old Northern tale, but cared not for the accuracy.
I would've pondered more on the strangeness of the locale, had I not then been accosted by monsters. Bulbous, brightly-coloured things the size of a hunting hound, looking like a caricature of a cat and a dog at once. They'd be quite comical, had they not such a menacing aura. Actually, I recognized the feeling coming off them: it was similar to the vague feeling I got from Summer, only made more notable by his absence.
There were five of them, in total. I had no weapons, no defenses, I couldn't feel my shadows, and I was fully unsure of the reality of the situation. Still, I had a good feeling about this fight. As one of the creatures leapt at me, I ducked beneath the thing's stomach, bending backwards in a move only an Academy-trained ninja could pull off.
Departing significantly from the Academy style of taijutsu, as I bent back I stretched forth my clawed hands and grabbed the beast by its hind legs and fell backwards into a handstand, flinging the beast prone in the process. Using the creature's body as a baseboard, I leapt from my hands into an acrobatic flip.
I turned over in the air and came down with both talons onto its head, crushing it to death. Rather than an expected splash of blood and gore, the strange beast simply popped out of existence, leaving a sparking stone jittering on the ground.
I had little time to examine it, unfortunately, as the beast's friends saw I was not planning to die easily and rushed me all at once. Summoning my levitation ball I leapt over them in turn, calling forth a viridian platform in midair to observe them from.
I pushed a once more insistent Trauma away, confident that whatever this new realm was, it held the key to tackling this problem with Brynden. I drop from my perch onto an unsuspecting cat-dog, talons once more crushing it in their grip. By this combination of platforms and levitation ball-bouncing, I took the rest of the beasts out systematically, leaving a small pile of glittering stones.
Examining the pile, I saw them to be closer to crystals in truth, glowing with unnatural vibrancy and occasionally shivering strangely. Two varieties were on display: A bluish-green crystal that nearly hopped into the air every time it shivered, and a yellow-orange crystal that shone with a pleasant light.
An instinct drove me as I collected the crystals, one I knew to be derived from the same place this realm sprung. I brought the crystals together in my claws, and focused on the image of the beasts I had slain. In a flash of light, I saw the crystals dissipate, felt them melting through my hands. They flowed into a glowing mound on the ground, filling it with pure light.
Suddenly, with a burst of energy, a new beast stood before me, kin to those I had slain. Rather than their dark menace, however, this little creature radiated only happiness and loyalty. He bounded up to me joyfully, and gave him a little pat on his head.
He was no Summer, but a companion in this strange realm was welcome indeed.
In ideal circumstances, I suspected I could enter and leave this realm as I please, simply by sleeping. Between the distorted surrounds and the odd creatures, this place felt intimately connected to dreams and dreaming. But with Bloodraven about, any attempt to leave would no doubt be blocked until he could ravage my mind and memories once more.
I might hold power, but I recognise he is by far my better in the greensight.
With my new ally by my side, I set off on exploring the twisted Winterfell.
Slightly early chapter, woohoo! Seriously though, I am up super late because my brain wouldn't stop yelling at me to finish this chapter, and even still I don't really think it's finished, but I can't keep going tonight so I cut it off at an appropriate moment. This chapter would've contained the full dream sequence and then the awakening, but instead I guess that'll be next chapter.
In future I'm going to try and make Friday (proper Friday, not this 15-past-midnight BS I'm pulling here) the upload day of choice. I would've waited, but it so happens that this Friday I am indisposed, an event is happening I'd feel bad not attending. No backlog yet to speak of, I wrote the last sentence literally a minute ago.
Control-
200- (Kingdom Hearts) Dream Drop-
To sleep, perchance to dream? Well, you're going to dream, and you're going to
do it whenever you feel like it. You can now enter a meditative state within which you can have lucid
dreams. You don't have any special control over these dreams, instead you are literally dropped
(watch out for enemies on your way down!) into a strange and distorted reflection of the world your
body rests in, filled with hostile beings called Nightmares.
These creatures are a type of Dream Eater
that feeds on happy dreams, and by defeating them you can gather fragments of their essence which
you can combine to create your own Dream Eaters called Spirits, which feed on Nightmares. They can
also help out in any dream or mind scape conflicts you find yourself in. While dreaming you can have
two of them following you at a time, with a third waiting in the wings in case one is knocked out, or
you want to swap one out for it on the fly.
The Spirits grow in power as you train them, and once they
reach their peaks will be quite powerful. Their starting strength is determined by the quantity of
essences used to make them; the more essences you use the closer they'll be to their peak right from
the get-go. Although some Spirits are fairly fast, you don't have to worry about the slower ones falling
behind as they can all teleport to you at will.
Swapping your 'active' Dream Eaters out is easy, you just
need to not be in a fight and you can swap them with a thought. Remember to care for them and have
fun with them; it'll help them grow to their full potential faster. Should you desire it you can have
them take on the visage of their Nightmare equivalent, a purely cosmetic decision but some of them
do look pretty cool.
Making-
200- (Hyrule Warriors) The Smithy-
The Smithy is a structure resembling a standard, though well-funded, workshop for blacksmiths. On first glance, the facilities are impressive but nothing out of the ordinary.
When you look in the back however, you'll find an old Hylian man next to an anvil with a hammer in hand. This man is the source of the Smithy's powers. Not only does he do fine work as a normal blacksmith, but he has the ability to actually fuse weapons of the same type into a new weapon.
The new weapon can appear as either component weapon and will have the sum of its component's abilities, such as elemental affinities or variable enchantments. As for type, this only works when fusing similar weapons such as two swords, two hammers and such.
The Smithy will be attached to your warehouse after leaving this Jump, though you will also gain the option to simply place it in the world at your discretion.
Source-
Free- (Kingdom Hearts) Magical Potential-
In this setting everyone has at least a small pool of magical potential,
measured in Magical Points, or MP, these points power magical spells that can be found and learned
in-jump. You are no exception, getting a small pool of MP that adds to whatever other magic you had.
Your MP will grow over time, and with use, but non-magicians would need a lot of magic restoring
Ethers on hand if they wanted to cast more than a few spells in a row. Magicians have significantly
more starting MP and will peak even higher than other backgrounds.
200- (Wizarding World) Occlumency- An obscure but nevertheless very useful branch of magic, Occlumency is the art of closing one's mind against that which would seek to influence and change it. For now, you have enough skill in the art to recognize whether something or someone has invaded your mind, no matter how subtle their efforts may be.
In fact, you are even proficient in blocking such attempts from most wizards save those with a mastery of mental magic. With a bit more experience and training, you could even learn to fool them, tricking their sights with false memories and leaving them none the wiser to the secrets of your mind. And on a final note, you'll find that the training you underwent in order to achieve your skill in Occlumency has left you with a resistance against mental assault of any kind.
From the truth revealing Veritaserum to the Imperius Curse and even more, your mind is a fortress that can be made all the more enduring as your skill in mental magic grows.
Destruction
400- (Keys to the Kingdom) Sword of the Front Door- The Front Door is the vanguard of the rest of the House against
the endless tide of Nothing. By buying this sword you become the Captain-Keeper of the
Front Door. This Blade of Blue Fire can help you navigate the Void as well as empower you to
fight with the force and skill of ten ''yous" when you fight creatures made of elemental
nothingness or darkness.
100- (Bloodborne) Beast Roar- A beast's claw converted into a Hunter's Tool by the hunter called Irreverent Izzy. Taking two bullets worth of blood to use, the hunter will borrow the strength of the terrible undeaddarkbeasts, if only for a moment, to blast surrounding foes back with a powerful roar.
This roar can also deflect projectiles if timed correctly, even small boulders, but it doesn't really workwith anything much heavier than that. The indescribable sound is broadcast with the caster's ownvocal cords, which begs the question, what terrible things lurk deep within the frames of men?
Free- (Kingdom Hearts) Wisdom Form- By focusing all power on magical might Wisdom form provides a powerful boost to the damage of your magical attacks, the speed at which you cast spells, and your mana recovery rate. The real damage dealer comes when you cast a spell a few times in a row - the final spell will be a combo finisher, which boosts the scale of the spell considerably. One bolt may become three, and a ring of fire becomes a wall. Your clothes become predominately blue and you can magically slide above the ground and fire rapid, though not particularly strong, bolts of magic. 15 minutes after exiting this form you'll be able to use it again, although as the decades roll on your efforts with Wisdom form may reduce this to a mere 5 minutes.
Illusion
100- (World of Darkness: Sorcery) Psychic Abilities- Psychic Invisibility (Hide)-
In the World of Darkness, psychic abilities and mythic sorcery are, at first glance, completely different. However, both manipulate the same powers, albeit in very different ways, and are both considered forms of linear magic. While a sorcerer utilizes numerous tools and ceremonies to harness supernatural powers, a psychic makes do with lots, and lots, of willpower. Furthermore, the majority of psychic powers are innate, and can be improved, but not gained, without outside interference, in stark contrast to sorcery.
The ability to broadcast a telepathic command not to notice the psychic. This power is not true invisibility, and will merely cause the psychic to be ignored. Unless the psychic also possesses the Animal Psychic talent, animals are unaffected by this power.
[1] Hide - the psychic will go ignored by anyone who is not actively searching the area they are in, so long as they do not move, speak, or otherwise betray their position.
Free- (Psychonauts) Psychic Aesthetics- While psychic powers are quite varied, how they take form is equally varied. You can change the color and designs of any of your abilities as is applicable. If you really want to be extra, you could also make your eyes glow while using your psychic powers.
Control
100- (A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians) Weak Shadowmancy- Summon and bind a handful of minor shadows to complete simple tasks, or report back on what they see. Sense shadows, shadowmancy or the Undead within tens of metres.
200- (Kingdom Hearts) Dream Drop-
To sleep, perchance to dream? Well, you're going to dream, and you're going to
do it whenever you feel like it. You can now enter a meditative state within which you can have lucid
dreams. You don't have any special control over these dreams, instead you are literally dropped
(watch out for enemies on your way down!) into a strange and distorted reflection of the world your
body rests in, filled with hostile beings called Nightmares.
These creatures are a type of Dream Eater
that feeds on happy dreams, and by defeating them you can gather fragments of their essence which
you can combine to create your own Dream Eaters called Spirits, which feed on Nightmares. They can
also help out in any dream or mind scape conflicts you find yourself in. While dreaming you can have
two of them following you at a time, with a third waiting in the wings in case one is knocked out, or
you want to swap one out for it on the fly.
The Spirits grow in power as you train them, and once they
reach their peaks will be quite powerful. Their starting strength is determined by the quantity of
essences used to make them; the more essences you use the closer they'll be to their peak right from
the get-go. Although some Spirits are fairly fast, you don't have to worry about the slower ones falling
behind as they can all teleport to you at will.
Swapping your 'active' Dream Eaters out is easy, you just
need to not be in a fight and you can swap them with a thought. Remember to care for them and have
fun with them; it'll help them grow to their full potential faster. Should you desire it you can have
them take on the visage of their Nightmare equivalent, a purely cosmetic decision but some of them
do look pretty cool.
Domain
Free- (Naruto) Forehead Protector- A strip of cloth with a metal plate attached, often with a symbol engraved on the plate. The pride of a ninja, even one without a village. Almost as long as there have been ninja, they have kept their protectors close. Yours has the symbol of your home village on it, perhaps with a slash to mark your abandonment of that village, or even a personal symbol of your own choice. Despite the name, ninja will often wear it in alternate fashions, such as a necklace or armband or even a belt. Through a quirk of fate, the forehead protector will never be scratched unless you intend it.
100- (Psychonauts) Levitation- Now, the levitation you learn here isn't exactly the same as what you might have been expecting. By creating 'thought bubbles' that can support your weight, you are able to move without touching the ground while going at your sprinting speed, launch yourself into the air, and slow down your falling speed like a psychic parachute.
200-(Psychonauts) Platforming- Bouncing around at the speed of sound is fun until you're coming towards a very deep hole you can't avoid. By making a thought bubble flat, you can create temporary platforms that you and other psychics can walk and jump on. Make a path over a large pit, reach the top shelf, all that good stuff. (CG Note: Requires Levitation)
Free- (Psychonauts) Custom Outfit- Along with all of the... 'unique' body shapes you'll find here, you'll find some equally unique clothing. And, well, we can't let you miss out on all the fun. You now have an outfit entirely of your own design that will always look good on you, no matter how goofy it may look.
Free- (Wizarding World) Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans- A risk with every mouthful! Created by one Bertie Bott, the popular candy's slogan certainly fits.
This small box is utterly packed to the brim with Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. Not only will you have the classic flavors such as chocolate, peppermint and marmalade, but there's also flavors such as spinach, liver, and tripe. But there's a lot more than that. If you aren't the lucky sort, you might wind up with a bean tasting just like earwax or worse. Still, this should be fun to play around with, especially when you consider that the box will never run out. As a bonus, you seem to have an uncanny knack for being able to pick out the beans you actually want.
Magitek
Making
200- (Hyrule Warriors) The Smithy-
The Smithy is a structure resembling a standard, though well-funded, workshop for blacksmiths. On first glance, the facilities are impressive but nothing out of the ordinary.
When you look in the back however, you'll find an old Hylian man next to an anvil with a hammer in hand. This man is the source of the Smithy's powers. Not only does he do fine work as a normal blacksmith, but he has the ability to actually fuse weapons of the same type into a new weapon.
The new weapon can appear as either component weapon and will have the sum of its component's abilities, such as elemental affinities or variable enchantments. As for type, this only works when fusing similar weapons such as two swords, two hammers and such.
The Smithy will be attached to your warehouse after leaving this Jump, though you will also gain the option to simply place it in the world at your discretion.
Divination
100- (Generic Magical Girl) Monster Sense- You can feel when a monster or evil magical source is nearby, and generally what direction it's in. Starts out very short ranged, but at least you'll realize the new ice-cream shop is a trap before you eat the sundae, instead of after your energy is already being drained. Eventually you'll be able to spot them from a mile away, but at first you'll need to be right in the trap before you notice the evil energy floating around.
100- (World of Darkness: Sorcery) Sorcery- Mana Manipulation (One Dot)- The sorcerer becomes aware of magical energy in the surrounding area.
100- (Wizarding World) A Light in the Darkness- There are so many dangers and so many monsters across the world that sometimes it can be easy to forget that there is beauty as well. But not you. Never you. For as long as you live, you will always be able to see the beauty in the world, from the flora basking underneath the shining sun above to the beasts that roam in each and every corner of the world.
But nature's glory is not solely meant for you. There are many others in this world and if you would but walk with them, they too will come to appreciate life. No matter who they may be, so long as they travel with you, they too shall be able to bear witness to the beauty of the world, and find their hopes and dreams restored.
Transformation
Lore
Free- (Percy Jackson) Old Traditions- You are knowledgeable in the ways of the ancient civilization corresponding to whatever mythology you're most connected with. You can read their languages, know the proper ways to honor the gods, and have a decent grasp of their mythology. Otherwise unassociated Drop-ins may choose any one ancient culture to know of. You may purchase this multiple times, each time gaining insight into a new culture.
50- (Naruto) Seal Kit- The core to any sealmaster's work. Reams of high quality paper, the sort that won't tear at high speed movement or be damaged from water soaking. These are packed tightly into a pouch, which also carries a number of writing implements and several ink holders. All these resources replenish soon after and are quick to be retrieved from the various pouches.
Free- (Wizarding World) The Jumper and the Wizarding World- You know, given how prolific your adventures have been and will be, it'd probably be a good idea to write it down. But that takes time and you may or may not have better things to do. If so, this is the perfect thing for you. You now have a bookshelf within your Warehouse utterly filled to the brim with books, each one detailing a year in your life and written in the style of the Harry Potter series, complete with their own appropriate titles. If you want to, I'm sure you can find a way to market and make a profit out of these novels.
Free- (Wizarding World) Inks and Quills- Wizards and witches are odd in so many ways. There are some who would even say that they are rather primitive, especially when it comes to their writing implements. After all, who still uses inks and quills nowadays? Then again, inks and quills aren't ordinarily enchanted. So, regardless of your feelings on the matter, it's only proper that you receive your own set of inks & quills.
Appearing to be nothing more than a simple suitcase, opening it will reveal to you your newfound writing tools, an endless supply of them really. You have ink bottles of every color. And you also have some magical inks, like Color-Change Ink, Self-Correcting Ink, Everlasting Ink and more. Even your new quills are fancy indeed, making it quite a pair with the ink. Self-Inking Quills, Quick-Quotes Quills, Sugar Quills, and many, many more. You even have a copy of a certain Senior Undersecretary's dreaded Black Quill. And you never need to worry about running out. For all intents and purposes, your suitcase is filled with a never-ending supply of these things.
Source
100- (Percy Jackson) Monstrous Strength- Whether by oddity of birth, ancestry, or mystical experiments you have gained an inhuman form. On the plus side this boosts your physical abilities in proportion to how obviously unnatural your current form is. Generally your form will be some terrifying fusion of various aspects of animals and humans, it is your choice on the particulars though. This boost also applies to other monster discounted perks. Generally you can interact with mortals without their notice so long as you stick to actions that can be reasonably explained by the Mist but even then most of those familiar with the true nature of the world will be able to spot various tells.
Free- (Wizarding World) You're a Wizard- This is probably the reason why you're here in the first place. After all, you can't be a proper wizard without the magic and skills to back it up. And so, you now have the ability to cast the magic of this wonderful wizarding world. And beyond its sheer versatility and might, you'll find magic to have more than a few other benefits.
For one thing, you're quite a bit more durable now, not overtly so but still. You could get struck in the head by a solid ball of iron barreling at you at over a hundred miles an hour, fall from your broomstick, and still be intact enough that with medical help, you'll be up and about by the end of the week. In fact, so long as the injuries weren't caused by certain kinds of magic, you can rest assured that wizards and witches will be able to heal it enough that it looked like it never happened in the first place.
You'll also find that the magic coursing through has rendered you healthier by far. Any of the mundane diseases that plague Muggles may still take hold on you, but they can be just as easily cured as if they were nothing more than a simple case of the sniffles. You also have a hefty resistance against mundane poisons and venoms of every kind, enough that a scorpion sting that would no doubt slay a Muggle could comfortably survive with little more than bedrest, if even that.
Magic truly is a wonderful thing.
Free- (Kingdom Hearts) Magical Potential-
In this setting everyone has at least a small pool of magical potential, measured in Magical Points, or MP, these points power magical spells that can be found and learned in-jump. You are no exception, getting a small pool of MP that adds to whatever other magic you had.
Your MP will grow over time, and with use, but non-magicians would need a lot of magic restoring Ethers on hand if they wanted to cast more than a few spells in a row. Magicians have significantly more starting MP and will peak even higher than other backgrounds.
Free (Ars Magica) The Gift-
The Gift is the ability to use magic; it is necessary cast spells from this world. However,
The Gift has a strong emotional effect on people and animals around you which can
make it hard to interact with strangers, as they may become suspicious and mistrustful
of you. The Gift's negative effects only occur if you interact with someone. Not talking
to anyone wouldn't alert them to your magical power. This negative effect is removed at
the end of this jump.
Modus
Free- (Naruto) Genin Experience- Everyone has to start somewhere, and most ninja in this world start their careers as simple Genin. Genin are fresh faced ninja straight from the academy who know the basics and maybe some stuff their parents taught them. Not much compared to other ninja, but still better than bandits and mercenaries who don't know how to use chakra. You are expected to have all training, experience, and competency of an average ninja at your relative rank. Genin will all know the basic Clone, Transformation, and Substitution techniques.
Free- (Psychonauts) Basic Braining- If you're going to be a psychic here, you might as well have some basic training. You know how to use your new psychic abilities safely, and how you could utilize them in combat.
Free- (Wizarding World) "The Wand Chooses The Wizard"- The favored tool of witches and wizards across the globe, the wand is the quintessential magical implement. And while witches and wizards can use magic without it, channeling magic through a wand allows them to achieve greater and more complex results. You are no different and as the wand chooses the wizard, this one has chosen you.
This wand is nothing special, merely allowing you to cast your spells and your magic with more ease and grace. But as time goes on and you find yourself using your wand more and more, your wand shall grow and change with you. Your favorite spells become easier to cast and more powerful to boot. And it shall be truly loyal to you, refusing to be used by those who would seek to harm you.
200 (Ars Magica) The Hermetic Arts-
You have been initiated into the Hermetic Arts, the basic components of all Hermetic
magic. There are fifteen Arts, divided into Techniques and Forms. Techniques are
verbs, and indicate what a spell does, while Forms are nouns and represent what a spell
affects. To achieve an effect, at least one Technique must be combined with at least one
Form.
The five Techniques are:
Creo - "I create." Creo magic brings things into existence from nothing or makes them
into better examples of what they already are. With Creo, a fireball or lightning bolt can
be created from thin air, but Creo might also heal a wound or cure a disease. You could
make a person stronger, more intelligent or even improve their reflexes with Creo.
Intellego - "I perceive." Intellego magic grants a mage perception beyond what their
mundane senses are capable of. It can grant the ability to see heat, read minds, or sense
a certain substance at a distance. It could also diagnose disease or sense and identify
magic.
Muto - "I transform." With Muto, a spell can grant its target properties that it could not
naturally have. Muto might change lead into gold, turn a person to stone, or cause a
person to grow wings, gills, or extra arms.
Perdo - "I destroy." Perdo magic hastens entropy, removes specific qualities of an object,
makes things worse examples of what they already are, or simply erases its targets from
existence. It can inflict age or disease, kill a person outright, or remove their mass while
leaving all other properties intact. Other Perdo spells could remove a target's image,
rendering it invisible, or extinguish all light within a structure.
Rego - "I control." Rego magic moves objects or causes them to take on a state that they
could naturally assume. Rego spells include telekinesis, teleportation, displacing one's
image, or mind control. Rego can also turn water into ice or vapor, since those are forms
that it can naturally have, and it can shape and carve inanimate objects.
The Forms are:
Animal - "animal." Mages can use Animal magic to affect all types of animals and animal
products. It may influence animals physically or mentally.
Aquam - "water." Aquam covers all types of liquids and their properties.
Auram - "air." Auram spells can affect gases, wind, and weather. Lightning spells fall
under Auram, since it is a weather phenomenon.
Corpus - "body." Corpus magic includes the human body, living or dead, as well as the
bodies of supernatural creatures that appear human.
Herbam - "plant." A mage can use Herbam magic to affect live and dead plants as well as
plant products of all types.
Ignem - "fire." Ignem concerns fire, heat and light. Perdo Ignem spells can affect cold or
darkness.
Imaginem - "image." Imaginem manipulates species (pronounced SPEH-kee-ayss), which,
according to medieval belief, are responsible for all sensation. This allows a mage to
affect all senses using Imaginem magic. Not only can it create, destroy or alter images
and sounds, but it can also affect taste, smell and touch.
Mentem - "mind." Using Mentem, a mage can manipulate the minds of humans or other
sapient beings. Mentem allows a mage to create or remove thoughts and emotions in a
target's mind, read minds, directly control minds, or render a target insane, among other
things.
Terram - "earth." Terram concerns solids not covered by other forms, typically, but not
limited to, dirt, stone and metal.
Vim - "power." Vim affects magic and supernatural forces directly, allowing for
counterspells, dispels and metamagic effects. It can also be used to affect supernatural
creatures such as angels, faeries and demons, and Perdo Vim spells are the only Hermetic
magics capable of permanently killing demons.
Each spell uses at least one technique and one form, though more can be used if
necessary. For example, turning stone into metal would qualify as Muto Terram, but
transforming a person into stone would be Muto Corpus + Terram, since the spell
concerns both a person's body (Corpus) and stone (Terram).
200 (Ars Magica) Ritual Magic-
The most powerful spells must be cast through lengthy rituals and the expenditure of vis;
more powerful rituals take longer and are more expensive to cast. Casting can
sometimes take hours, but ritual magic is capable of much more than ordinary formulaic
magic. Rituals can create permanent effects and target entire cities or more. A typical
ritual spell might create a naturally-spreading, highly contagious plague, permanently
increase a person's intelligence, transform an entire forest of trees, or even create life.
200 (Ars Magica) Efficient Ritual Magic-
If you take this perk as a Hermetic mage, you are able to cast more powerful ritual spells,
and must only expend half the necessary material components for any spell that requires
them. Additionally, you may lead a group of willing mages in ritualistically casting any
spell you know (even non-ritual spells), with the power of the spell growing in proportion
with the number and power of the cooperating mages.
Note for the keeper of the Grimoire: Do not try updating Grimoire while on phone. Things start breaking.
That world wound is quite the divergence from the usual "celestial something" formula, it will be interesting to see where it takes the story. I would however be watchfull with things like companions, as they can they become annoying when they sorta take over the story and do most of the work, luckily that doesn't seem like the case here, just another thought from similar type fics
That world wound is quite the divergence from the usual "celestial something" formula, it will be interesting to see where it takes the story. I would however be watchfull with things like companions, as they can they become annoying when they sorta take over the story and do most of the work, luckily that doesn't seem like the case here, just another thought from similar type fics
I wouldn't worry about that, the majority of living things my version of the Grimoire could hypothetically provide are either non-sentient, or non-speaking. No one ought to be worried about a chocobo taking the reins of the story, after all. All the people that may or may not be provided by some perks are usually highly specialized experts in a field and meant to act as teachers, or people who are out and out noncombatants. Cultist Simulator drags some people along in its domain perks i think, but they'd be barely a step above an average human. No Saiyans are going to come along and trivialize the story.
Ah fair enough, so far what i've seen has not lead me to think that would be the case, but it is nice to have the confirmation. By the way is Tyrion still visiting the wall, timeline-wise?
Can Bran teach things like the gening nija techniques to others or are the fiat-backed/locked to him?
Ah fair enough, so far what i've seen has not lead me to think that would be the case, but it is nice to have the confirmation. By the way is Tyrion still visiting the wall, timeline-wise?
Can Bran teach things like the gening nija techniques to others or are the fiat-backed/locked to him?
Ninja Magic as done in Naruto requires a chakra system, which as of right now is limited to Bran. Wizarding World magic has a genetic component and I'm not yet sure how willing I am to have that stretch to the local magic system as yet.
If a style of magic solely relies on knowledge/faith/some extrinsic component that doesn't need to be bestowed by a higher power, chances are Bran can teach it. A surprising amount of magic systems have such barriers, however. There are perks in the Grimoire that can allow for the passing on of magical access, and one is even in the pool right now! It's a hefty one, though, and Bran is gonna have to be sure he wants it because it's on the same level as the one that knocked him out earlier.
The unfamiliar familiarity of Twisted Winterfell wears on me. Every hundred paces strange creatures appeared, hellbent on bloodshed. Bats and birds, heavy cat-dog creatures and frightening steeds, all corrupted into something malevolent. And not one of them left a true corpse, save for these strange gems.
Since I and my unnamed companion made short work of them, I was beginning to gather quite a collection of such oddities. Shivering stones, stones whose texture contradicts themselves, stones that enraptured with inner beauty. If my earlier supposition was correct, this being an extension of the dream-realm I was used to, then it follows that these stones are somewhat metaphorical.
In that lens, they are likely fragmentary concepts, fleeting feelings rendered tangible. 'Twas a mixture of pleasant and passionate energies that formed my ally, and I resolved to experiment further with these imaginary gemstones once this Bloodraven situation was over. Perhaps these stones are what pass for the corpse of an imaginary beast?
Then again, it may be that thoughts of life and death would be too alien to these creatures, if they are something like living ideas. Perhaps what appears to me as a cycle of life and death, is truly something else I simply lack the imagination to understand? Ideas, generally, do not actually live, and so they cannot truly die.
I grimaced, thinking that. Came far too close to Ironborn theology for my liking. Still, perhaps the comparison was apt: These creatures fear death about as much as the Ironborn, and none of them seem open for polite conversation. Still, their base components are absolutely fascinating. The only upside to this mess was the sheer variety of magic I'd been exposed to, and if the world didn't seem on the verge of oblivion I would revel in the sheer wonder of it all.
But as tempting as a comprehensive magical study might sound, I must ensure the world doesn't shatter, or evaporate, or whatever else the Trauma might be doing in the waking world.
Glancing up, I saw the Trauma's reflection in this realm. Even in this strange dreamscape, it was omnipresent. Hanging over the world like a bleeding sore, magic-wrought wound upon reality. I'll have to check in with Luwin's observations once I awake; if it should be farther out from the earth than the lunar sphere, it would be a much more difficult problem to fix.
Slowly, the Hermetic magic has been unpacking itself in my mind, and no simple division between experience and memories were present here. While other memories had been vague, distant, and incomplete, here I was recalling vivid imagery: Castles, towns, and towers, apprenticeship under a powerful Hermeticist, and eventually founding a covenant of my own.
Still incomplete, I knew there were vital aspects still missing, but it was if an entire new life had been melded into mine. It frightened me, but not as much as it had before. It did not feel like the life of a stranger, it was mine in truth, though the names and faces of old friends eluded me. I sorely missed the presence of the Parma Magica, vital to the Hermeticist yet absent from my memories, and I had no remembrance of the standard methods of formulaic or spontaneous magic.
What I did have, was an extensive memory of ritualism. Not useful in this dream, but something to explore in depth with the good maester later. If I could acquire the right materials, and if even half of what I recall was truly possible… If times were better, I could've lifted the entire North into untold prosperity. Green fields free of blight, great wards to stave off winter's chill…
I could raise castles in a day, and we might've actually been able to manage the vast lands that go about unutilized.
A glorious dream, that was. Sadly, the future is still too uncertain for comfort. Until the breach in the world can be sealed, controlled, or even healed properly, I can't waste time with anything else. If it was resolved, however…
A wicked grin split my face. The Others could safely be considered a solved problem. I doubt the Night King has any sufficient response to a Creo Ignem ritual cast at the very Heart of Winter. With this warm and happy thought, I made my way through to the Great Hall, casting down more twisted bats and horses, and tasking my colorful companion with gathering the remains.
The Crow lay there, battered and bruised, amidst a pile of familiar stones. I had not, in all honesty, truly expected Bloodraven to be their source. Still, a confirmation of the ideoform entities' general hostility was pleasant enough. I frowned at that thought.
The experience of Hermetic scholarship may not be fully beneficial, if all my prose is wont to be so prosaic. Ideoform entities, indeed. 'Nightmares' are a good a name as any, and more readily understood at that. I nodded: These beasts would be Nightmares, and by my strangely specied friend I was to be some Tamer of Nightmares.
The Crow staggered to his feet, three burning eyes bloodshot and maddened.
"You…!" He croaked. "What is this!? Where have you brought us!?" His voice did not scratch at the walls of my mind, as they had in the greendream. This realm must be more friendly towards communication, for speaking plainly to be so simple.
"I'm not sure, old friend." I responded. "A dream of some sort, I've gathered."
"Old friend!?" he spat. "To your eyes, mayhaps. I've seen enough, what I tore from your mind, profane traveler." The beast, rising to fill the hall, shuddered. "To think, 'tis my own doing that proves my downfall. Mine own apprentice, 'tis bad comedy!"
My hand rose by instinct to the place at my forehead his beak had once pecked and shredded.
"Was it you who removed my old powers?"
"Had I the power, I would've! Nay, 'twas your own deeds which sundered your sight and shackled your will. All magic has its price, monster. I shall not weep for the loss, myself, for you do quite enough with the alien magics you have brought with you!" He shook his head, feathers ruffled. "Memories, only memories did I take from you, naught else. The prophecies, painstakingly entrusted to you, felled by an act of mercy unbecoming of our likes."
"I am not sorry, and shall never apologize." I stated firmly. "The Kingdoms could all go hang if it saved one member of my family."
"Aye, the Kingdoms could and did, but the world had to follow! A path of ruin you left that land in, and in an act of ultimate hubris did you bring that ruin back unto us!"
"I didn't think-"
"Clearly not!" He interrupted. "Ask yourself, boy, why had there never been any tales, nor legends, nor even idle fantasies of what you attempted? I saw myself imparting this very lesson unto you, by the Gods! The past is fixed, long woven, and to tamper with it is pointless folly."
"But-"
"Aye, you succeeded well enough, haven't you?" He sneered. "I'll grant you I may not have known all there was to know of the sight, but those who taught me well warned me of the cost of meddling in things beyond mortal ken! I can only assume our lessons did not last long enough for the same to be taught properly to you.
"Perhaps a shorter invocation, a message pastwards of days or weeks may pass untroubled, I know not. But you unwove a tapestry three decades long! How could the realm withstand such abuse, do you know?" He leaned over me, a colossus above an ant. "You've broken something, something fundamental, and now the world shall suffer from it."
"I will fix it." I claimed, filling my voice with confidence I found hard to feel. "A boon to match the bane that followed me, a tome of surpassing power and knowledge! It holds the key to deliverance, I am certain!"
"I am not. Any such gift from beyond is likely poisoned fruit. Look at yourself, fool, and how your body and mind have twisted already! Are you a boy, or a man grown? A King, a witch, a ninja, a psychic?" He spoke the last words strangely, foreign words to his tongue, even as they struck me true. "Man, or beast, or something else altogether? You think you can save the world? Save yourself, first, and then we'll see."
His words shook me, but I remained unbowed. To give in to despair at this juncture would be an affront to the Lord.
I staggered; Where had that come from? Even as I pondered I knew the answer: The Hermetic in me was always a devout Christian, easy enough to manage when miracles were verifiable facts and magic could do little to hinder them.
I shuddered; the Crow might have had a point, I didn't want to know what happened when multiple Gods had authority over a single soul. Perhaps Westeros was far beyond the reach of the Christian God?
My Hermetic self doubted the supposition, for the Lord was almighty. Enough of that.
I clutched at my head, vainly trying to quell the spinning within. I was raised in the tradition of the Old Gods; I had been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. I had met angels and saints, fought and even killed true demons! Yet I was a witch, and the most stringent Christians did not suffer the witch to live.
"You see?" The Crow cackled. "Even now, your identity splits at the seams! Man or monster, what is it, boy!?" Was the Lord as jealous a god as they say? Would such a being suffer my obeisance to the Old Gods?
The Hermetics kept their own faiths, yet stood apart from the Churches, Temples, and Mosques to avoid drawing the wrath of Hell. Pagans had a place in the Order, yet I know I was not one. My faith was equally true to both divinities, and I knew not how to reconcile these principles.
My vision blurred, hearing grew distant; could one faint in a dream, I wondered deliriously. My mind spun out of control, running through the events that had led me here. The first time I had channeled my chakra to switch places with Summer, the first time I'd lifted me and my chair through the power of my mind, finding the Grimoire, waving that wand…
Oh, that feeling. For the first time since my very earliest experiences with it, magic felt wondrous, miraculous in its own right. It was not a thing to fear, but to be embraced, however warily. A source of joy and not simple pain.
The memory of the wonder, the light shining in the darkness… it helped. My head slowed its whirling as the storm of thoughts within began to diminish. I did not know how I would square my crisis of faith just yet, but I was confident that an answer existed. I simply needed to find it.
"Man… or monster… eh, Bloodraven?" I wearily looked into his three glaring eyes, and grinned. "Why not both?"
"It doesn't matter, you know." He spat venomously. "I can feel it, whatever you did to bring us here… It'll damn us far quicker than the Others could ever hope to."
"That's absurd, and you know it, Rivers." I scoffed. "Look about you, I doubt this is a simple dream any may fall into, and these beasts-"
"Not the dream, imbecile!" He snarled. "You think that's all that happened when we clashed!?"
"Apologies, I'm afraid the realm did not come with a shipping manifest." Not that I knew of, at least. I really ought to read that Grimoire properly, sometime soon.
"Even as distant as I am, I can feel it. In the roots of the trees and whistling of the wind, something wretched approaches the world!"
"What? What is coming, Rivers?"
"Your doing, what else!? Besides that, I know not. All I know is that it feels…"
He shuddered, feathers all along his form ruffling and standing on end in distress.
"... Dark. It feels so very dark."
Joffrey Baratheon, first of his name and Heir to the Iron Throne as he was keen on flaunting, was upset and confused. This was far from an unfamiliar feeling, and he knew precisely where to go to resolve it.
"Mother, why on earth are we heading back!?" He whined. His mother, Queen of the Realm, was always able to help him get what he wanted, and right now he wanted to go home, not back to the drab keep they'd been dragged to.
The wheelhouse trundled along the rough road northwards, the Kingsroad hardly worth the title this far into what may as well be wilderness. Joffrey would prefer to be riding himself, but his mother wanted him kept in the wheelhouse while traveling right now. She'd said with the strangeness about, she didn't want him out of sight for too long.
"It's your father, dearest." She tried to soothe him. "He's all worked up about… that thing." The strangeness that infected the sky was certainly unsettling, but it hardly seemed worth all this trouble to Joffrey's mind. "That Northern brute, superstitious as he is, refuses to move forward until he can be assured of his family's safety, as if they weren't behind curtain walls five score feet high!"
"Can't you reason with Father? Show him he is being unreasonable?" Joffrey continued petulantly.
"I've tried, dearheart, but that made your oafish father more determined to travel back, if anything. He'll not heed me while his foster-brother has his ear."
"It's not fair!" He cried. His mother swept him up in her arms, nearly swaddling him in her breasts. His father might cry about how unbecoming such behavior was of a boy of twelve name-days, but Queen Cersei always knew Joffrey would be the sweet little boy she had nursed herself. Joffrey himself hardly minded.
"I know it is, my son, I know." She soothed. "Just bear the indignity a while longer, the King cannot be seen to be at the whim of anyone, not even his brother and Hand. We shall not be here long." The wheelhouse trundled to a stop, the legion of horses eager for their rest. "Come now, the camp is being set up. Supper will be upon us soon, let us make ready."
Supper was hearty, if fairly simply spiced, roasted deer with an assortment of roasted vegetables and fruits. Hardly fit for a Prince's plate, but Joffrey understood how limited supplies were on the road, and decided to practice magnanimity. One should present a princely face even under stress, his mother had taught him. And he was not handling being so confined very well at all.
His uncle, naturally, was digging into the meal with gusto. The strain of riding all day can make anyone's palate expand, Joffrey knew. He wished he could enjoy this bland dish as much as his uncle did.
Mostly, though he was envious of his uncle's freedom.
"Uncle Jaime," he ventured, "Can I please come riding with you in the morn?" The wheelhouse was simply intolerable, he longed for the wind in his hair and the noble steed betwixt his legs.
"Not without your mother's consent, you can't." He replied, sternly.
"Please, Uncle Jaime? She'll never allow it, and I can't stand another three days of the wheelhouse!"
"Your mother is the Queen, Joffrey. Only the King could countermand her authority, and I doubt he'd be any happier to see you out and about under this dreadful sky."
"Oh, piss on the sky!" Joffrey shouted. His magnanimity had reached a limit. "There's nothing bad out there, the sky is just being weird right now! I'll prove it!" He ran out of the dining tent, under the gleam of the white moon leisurely traveling across the sky, abreast a fixed red glow like the opening of the seven hells.
"Joffrey!? Get back here, you-"
Joffrey didn't hear what his uncle was going to call him, as he was already running out of camp. This area was familiar to him, he had been along this stretch of the Kingsroad not a moon past. He had walked along a nearby stream with his betrothed. An insipid girl, but pleasant enough. She recognised the inherent worth of a prince's mere presence, which did endear her to him.
He ran along the stream, exulting in the fresh night air. He knew he'd be punished for this later, but he knew equally that his mother would be assured enough by his safe return and it wouldn't be terribly harsh. He judged it worth the future unpleasantness to experience a few more minutes of sweet freedom before being confined to that wretched wheelbox once again.
He ran until he could run no more, and sat down by the streambed. His uncle would carry him back, or else face mother's wrath, so for the moment he felt truly content. He was breathing heavily, panting with exertion and exhilaration.
It was a short while, yet still not nearly long enough for Joffrey's liking, before his uncle found him. Joffrey had largely recovered his breath by this point, but still intended to have his uncle carry him. It was only fair for forcing this reaction from Joffrey, after all.
"Joffrey? Joffrey, come on, we need to head back! Your mother is worried sick!"
"A few more minutes, uncle?" Joffrey tried. "I just want to be outside a while!"
"No, Joffrey." He said, sternly. "It's dangerous out at night, regardless of whatever else is going on! Now get over here, we're going back!" Joffrey didn't care for the tone of his uncle's voice there. He scrambled to his feet, before turning about towards Jaime with all the righteous fury the prince could muster.
"No, Uncle! I don't want to! I hate this, all of this! I just want to go home, is that so much to ask!" He shouted. "We already stayed far too long because of that useless brat!"
"Joffrey," said his uncle, seriously. "We need to leave."
"No! I'm staying right here, and you can't stop me!"
"Joffrey, I am not joking, come over here now! Please!"
Joffrey just shook his head, denying his uncle wholeheartedly.
"No, I-" Joffrey suddenly took notice of the sheer quiet surrounding them. He'd not been on many a hunt, but the stories his father told always held his attention. He knew quiet woodlands were a bad sign, a sign of predators lurking about.
He didn't feel nearly as safe anymore. Fear filled the hole his fleeing confidence had left in him, and he began searching anxiously for any sign of what was lying in wait.
"Joffrey! This way, quickly!" His uncle hissed at him from downstream. The prince was in no greater haste to heed him than he had before, wariness replacing bravado. He didn't want to move a muscle until he knew where the threat was.
"Joffrey!"
Turning around, Joffrey saw two horrible, gleaming yellow eyes staring at him hungrily. No slavering mouth could he see, however, just a solid dark surface the eyes rested in. The light of the pale moon was just barely not enough to illuminate the creature, but what light there was was drunken in by midnight-black flesh. It stood at a head with Joffrey, before lowering into a hunched crouch, wicked claws of dark design extended in anticipation of a pounce.
A man of iron will might be able to stare such darkness in the face without flinching. Joffrey had many things inherited from his parents, but fortitude was not among them. As he looked into those hideous eyes, he gasped and fell backward in terror. The beast took this as its moment to strike.
"No!"
Before Ser Jaime had a chance to unsheathe his sword, the beast had already run his unholy get's heart through, Joffrey knew no more.
Were that the end of it, the knight would have been glad of it, for after the beast had taken its fill from his boy, Joffrey's body began to decay into dust before his very eyes. The dust that was once his child was borne away on unseen winds, leaving only…
Two beasts!?
As the newly formed creature looked about in apparent confusion, it eventually locked eyes with Jaime. It stumbled in his direction, as if a newborn foal unsure of its legs. Before the beast could pounce, Jaime took up his blade and severed the thing's head from its body.
The creature barely seemed to even notice his steel blade. Ser Jaime bravely ran away that night, for any demon that could so fully devour a child and avoid the taste of steel was far beyond even his skills.
He ran, and ran, all the way back to camp. He must have seemed mad for all his ranting of demons in the woods. Robert and Ned both tried to laugh him off.
He seemed decidedly less mad when the demons arrived.
Astapor
Today, his name was White Rat. He enjoyed having a rat's name, for he felt special kinship with them. They had been his only friends in the pits where he and his cohorts had slept. He could not befriend the others training, for all too often would they fail and be culled. He could not befriend his puppy, for he knew its ultimate fate. He could not befriend the Masters, for they were the Masters and he was a slave.
The rats, though… The rats were everywhere, weak individually and yet never fully suppressed by those who wished them dead. Individual rats came and went, but the rats themselves could not be beaten.
It was with the rats he found his purpose as an Unsullied, who could never be strong as a full man, but together could overcome any trial. It was through the rats he understood the teachings of the great goddess. If he'd still been capable of pride, he'd have taken pride in being named after a rat.
The Good Masters knew that any name could give a slave pride, though, and so he was never a Rat for long. Still, he enjoyed the names while they lasted. It was one of the only vices an Unsullied could permit themselves.
He had yet to be sold to a master, and so today he was guarding the pits where new trainees slept. They had only recently been cut, and the pits rang out with the baying of dogs who knew not their fates. A few eunuchs would surely perish for the love of their companions; weakness White Rat had long discarded. He felt no sympathy for those who fail their training, for all was done in accordance with the will of the Lady of Spears.
Today was the day of the culling, and already some of the cries had gone silent. Perhaps a worthy batch of Unsullied might come from this stock? The cries were dying unusually fast, now. Had he the power, White Rat might have allowed himself a smile.
He knew the great goddess had rent the sky for a reason. It was a sign, the future of the Unsullied was bright indeed. Why else would the sky bleed like a severed sword? The baying of the dogs had subsided completely, and for a surprise that anyone not Unsullied might reel from, there was hardly any crying from the trainees. This was a good stock, indeed.
His orders had been clear: If the culling should not last the full day, he was to round up the trainees for a pleasant mountain hike, and should any fail the journey they would be culled. They should be grateful it was as late in the day as it was, else the dawn-lit trail may have hidden some predators not yet sleeping for the day. They would be fine so long as their strength was unwavering, and such was the minimum demanded of their kind.
He marched into the slave pits where the trainees were kept. As he went down, he expected the sound of crying boys to grow louder, yet they did not come at all. White Rat was well pleased with these trainees internally, perhaps they would lose only a tenth of them to the next several years?
Yet as he approached the culling chamber itself and still heard nothing, not even the chatter of Masters overseeing the event, his near-pride became something approaching caution. The goddess would never allow him to flee battle, strife, or danger, but to go forward recklessly was not courage but foolhardiness. He slowed his approach, unsheathing his blade in the process. If one of the trainees had dared to harm one of the Masters he would have to cull the whole lot.
Slowly opening the door to the culling chamber-
"Agh!" He was surprised from behind, a burning hole torn through his chest. He fell back into his assaulter, who seemed to be a dark demon of some kind, with burning yellow candle flames for eyes. Even as he died, he attempted to cleave the beast with his sword. He was Unsullied, and his service did not end until he could breathe no more.
The demon made no notice of his steel, which parted its flesh like it was hardly there yet left no trace. The beast was apparently immune to mortal steel. Still, White Rat fought, slashing and clubbing weakly at the demon which had taken something from within him, something he was starting to fade without.
As he died, he refused to stop fighting, and would fight even beyond death if the great goddess would only let him. He held his blade close, and faded into the darkness.
When White Rat awoke once more, he stood at his station, overlooking the pits. Something was off, but he could not determine what. It may have had something to do with the entire city of Astapor being aflame, but the true uneasiness lay within him.
Where before his emotions had been stripped away by force and rigorous training, now… There was simply nothing. Suddenly, the fog cleared from White Rat's mind, and everything became perfectly clear: He had won his goddesses' favor.
The goddess demanded absolute subservience and the stripping of individuality, the removal of the self from the perfect warrior. She had elevated him, taken away what base desires remained, and gave him true clarity. He saw now that the Good Masters had not known the true way of the Goddess, for they ruled the Unsullied through ingrained fear.
True Unsullied knew no fear. In this, White Rat surmised… True Unsullied knew no Masters, either. He gazed down upon his form, familiar yet changed. He was naked as the day he was born, yet the scar that reminded him of what he had sacrificed was gone, replaced by bare skin.
Their skin, too, was different. Pale white like marble, riddled with dark marks everywhere they bore a scar. A weaker soul might feel some kind of way about such a situation, but White Rat was Unsullied. They bore the changes with the dignity of one knowing it for the blessing it is.
They knew themselves not as a man, but Unsullied alone. They were uplifted beyond such things. Their fear was gone, and their long-dormant rage at the Masters with it. They were beyond them, now; As far beyond the old Unsullied as they were beyond mortal warriors. Their will was steel, and they swore their name would be White Rat from that day onwards.
No more would the Masters take their names, keep them servile. As the flames spread over Astapor, White Rat allowed themself a smile. They could not feel joy, as they could not feel anything anymore. Still, they held the memory of it. And the memory was enough.
They could feel it, still: the place that once held those feelings that had held them back. Weaker folk would use their feelings for strength, only the Unsullied knew the true path. The shedding of mortal emotion, of pain and fear, led to true power. They had been uplifted by the grace of their goddesses' dark servants, and where one is there would be more.
Even now, they could see the darkness encroaching, dancing between the flames and running down those who feared glory. They knew that those with sufficient will would rise to join them, purged of mortal weakness and ready for the battles to come.
The Goddess was great, and Her power would see them through the troubles to come. They set out into the city, searching for others who had survived the Lady of Spears' trial and been purified.
Well, when I started writing this story, I really wasn't expecting this to be the first big apocalypse Bran had to face down, but here we are. The Heartless have begun to descend upon Westeros! And as soon as I started thinking about Heartless, I thought about the Nobodies, and who else would really grok what the Nobodies had going on than the Unsullied of Astapor?
Joffrey is absolutely dead, I hated what little I had to write of him, I can't write such entitled little shits for shit, I hope his section isn't too terrible to read, etc.
I actually finished this one yesterday, which is a technical improvement from last week! Wait, didn't I post on Thursday last week?
Damn.
Anyway, I got too impatient about the Ars Magica perks and an opportunity came up to give Bran a new existential crisis to stew over when he isn't busy. Obligatory 'I am not myself a Christian, but was raised in the tradition, and either way the tradition was likely very different in the year 1200 so please forgive any inaccuracies' warning here.
Source-
Free (Ars Magica) The Gift-
The Gift is the ability to use magic; it is necessary cast spells from this world. However,
The Gift has a strong emotional effect on people and animals around you which can
make it hard to interact with strangers, as they may become suspicious and mistrustful
of you. The Gift's negative effects only occur if you interact with someone. Not talking
to anyone wouldn't alert them to your magical power. This negative effect is removed at
the end of this jump.
Modus-
200 (Ars Magica) The Hermetic Arts-
You have been initiated into the Hermetic Arts, the basic components of all Hermetic
magic. There are fifteen Arts, divided into Techniques and Forms. Techniques are
verbs, and indicate what a spell does, while Forms are nouns and represent what a spell
affects. To achieve an effect, at least one Technique must be combined with at least one
Form.
The five Techniques are:
Creo - "I create." Creo magic brings things into existence from nothing or makes them
into better examples of what they already are. With Creo, a fireball or lightning bolt can
be created from thin air, but Creo might also heal a wound or cure a disease. You could
make a person stronger, more intelligent or even improve their reflexes with Creo.
Intellego - "I perceive." Intellego magic grants a mage perception beyond what their
mundane senses are capable of. It can grant the ability to see heat, read minds, or sense
a certain substance at a distance. It could also diagnose disease or sense and identify
magic.
Muto - "I transform." With Muto, a spell can grant its target properties that it could not
naturally have. Muto might change lead into gold, turn a person to stone, or cause a
person to grow wings, gills, or extra arms.
Perdo - "I destroy." Perdo magic hastens entropy, removes specific qualities of an object,
makes things worse examples of what they already are, or simply erases its targets from
existence. It can inflict age or disease, kill a person outright, or remove their mass while
leaving all other properties intact. Other Perdo spells could remove a target's image,
rendering it invisible, or extinguish all light within a structure.
Rego - "I control." Rego magic moves objects or causes them to take on a state that they
could naturally assume. Rego spells include telekinesis, teleportation, displacing one's
image, or mind control. Rego can also turn water into ice or vapor, since those are forms
that it can naturally have, and it can shape and carve inanimate objects.
The Forms are:
Animal - "animal." Mages can use Animal magic to affect all types of animals and animal
products. It may influence animals physically or mentally.
Aquam - "water." Aquam covers all types of liquids and their properties.
Auram - "air." Auram spells can affect gases, wind, and weather. Lightning spells fall
under Auram, since it is a weather phenomenon.
Corpus - "body." Corpus magic includes the human body, living or dead, as well as the
bodies of supernatural creatures that appear human.
Herbam - "plant." A mage can use Herbam magic to affect live and dead plants as well as
plant products of all types.
Ignem - "fire." Ignem concerns fire, heat and light. Perdo Ignem spells can affect cold or
darkness.
Imaginem - "image." Imaginem manipulates species (pronounced SPEH-kee-ayss), which,
according to medieval belief, are responsible for all sensation. This allows a mage to
affect all senses using Imaginem magic. Not only can it create, destroy or alter images
and sounds, but it can also affect taste, smell and touch.
Mentem - "mind." Using Mentem, a mage can manipulate the minds of humans or other
sapient beings. Mentem allows a mage to create or remove thoughts and emotions in a
target's mind, read minds, directly control minds, or render a target insane, among other
things.
Terram - "earth." Terram concerns solids not covered by other forms, typically, but not
limited to, dirt, stone and metal.
Vim - "power." Vim affects magic and supernatural forces directly, allowing for
counterspells, dispels and metamagic effects. It can also be used to affect supernatural
creatures such as angels, faeries and demons, and Perdo Vim spells are the only Hermetic
magics capable of permanently killing demons.
Each spell uses at least one technique and one form, though more can be used if
necessary. For example, turning stone into metal would qualify as Muto Terram, but
transforming a person into stone would be Muto Corpus + Terram, since the spell
concerns both a person's body (Corpus) and stone (Terram).
200 (Ars Magica) Ritual Magic-
The most powerful spells must be cast through lengthy rituals and the expenditure of vis;
more powerful rituals take longer and are more expensive to cast. Casting can
sometimes take hours, but ritual magic is capable of much more than ordinary formulaic
magic. Rituals can create permanent effects and target entire cities or more. A typical
ritual spell might create a naturally-spreading, highly contagious plague, permanently
increase a person's intelligence, transform an entire forest of trees, or even create life.
200 (Ars Magica) Efficient Ritual Magic-
If you take this perk as a Hermetic mage, you are able to cast more powerful ritual spells,
and must only expend half the necessary material components for any spell that requires
them. Additionally, you may lead a group of willing mages in ritualistically casting any
spell you know (even non-ritual spells), with the power of the spell growing in proportion
with the number and power of the cooperating mages.
Nice, I hope when Bran closes the Trauma, he stops getting perks as he should have plenty by then.
Endless perks are boring and would run the story to the ground, as they did to 95% Celestial fics.
Wait, Robert and Ned laughing at Jaime for demons is fine, but the heir died?
Nice, I hope when Bran closes the Trauma, he stops getting perks as he should have plenty by then.
Endless perks are boring and would run the story to the ground, as they did to 95% Celestial fics.
Wait, Robert and Ned laughing at Jaime for demons is fine, but the heir died?
I probably didn't bring it across too well, but the things were basically right on Jaime's trail the whole way back. It was a very short interval between Jaime showing up rambling about the shadow demons, and then the Heartless appearing.
oh god, looking back at this one, how did I let so many spelling errors slip through? Hold on, I need to do a bit of editing.
Nice, I hope when Bran closes the Trauma, he stops getting perks as he should have plenty by then.
Endless perks are boring and would run the story to the ground, as they did to 95% Celestial fics.
Nice, I hope when Bran closes the Trauma, he stops getting perks as he should have plenty by then.
Endless perks are boring and would run the story to the ground, as they did to 95% Celestial fics.
"Yes, a blighted darkness that will sweep the land and leave less than nothing in its wake."
"You are certain of this, Rivers?"
"As certain as I am that you are the ultimate cause of it, yes. I am not sure how you've brought me here in my fullness, but the connection between me and the weirwoods cannot be severed so easily, entwined as we are." The great crow snorted. "Even now, it comes to take the hopeless, the despaired, the enraged and grieving, darkness of men calling out to darkness far greater and being answered in turn."
"Then help me, Bloodraven! Given time, I am all but certain I can enact a ritual to-,"
"I would rather die, wretch!" He snarled. "You are naught but a bringer of ruin! I have seen your coming, long before your accursed birth. Unlike you, I know enough not to meddle with events set in stone! But always, I felt it. We felt it, those who still practiced the sight. The oncoming storm, a shattering of all we knew…
"Until I ravaged your memories myself, I would hardly know the Others for a threat, compared to you." He glared at me, red-eyed, and contorted his beak into what might pass for a grin. "But now? Oh, now, there is no more future, and we can do as we will! So I contented myself with being the agent of your torment, to punish you for all that is to come. It is still not enough.
"So no, I will not help you. Never shall I help you, whose coming I have long dreaded."
"What? Hold on, you saw my coming beforehand!?"
"I am a greenseer, am I not? In your journey, you traveled through the weirwood network, using their odd manner of seeing to connect with your past." His tone grew harsher, and his eyes sharp enough to cut. "Your past, but my future! Knowing what I know now, I can even tell how your actions to 'preserve your family' truly doomed your time."
"How!?"
"The Targaryen girl, the Mother of Dragons. She held the strongest connection to her family's magic seen in centuries." He snapped his beak. "Magic that once drove their family to seek shelter in Westeros, having foreseen the Doom. Prophecy was in her blood, quite literally. When you rewrote Arya's fate, you did far more than just that: a wave, rippling out from that one change, one I would have seen had I lived, and one the girl almost certainly felt, to her detriment."
"Is that-,"
"Why she burned King's Landing, the seat of her family? Why she forsook her hope for 'breaking the wheel', as she said? Almost certainly. That family, my family, by blood, if not by name, has long entwined magic and madness, and even a light touch can be enough to go from one to the other. She was destined to be a Dragonlady, a Witch-Queen to guide Westeros into a new golden age of magic!
"Instead, she became the spitting image of her grandfather, before she was slain by her own kin. But at least your sister lived, and I suppose that's what mattered most in the end." His tone here drove my wolfsbood into a raging boil; he goes too far!
"I would do it again, Rivers! Given half the chance, so would you!"
"Never!" The foul liar!
"I know you, Brynden! The brother you loved, the brother you hated, the woman you desired! You spoke of them to me, said that you'd never had so much as a word pass to them! You tried, Rivers, and I know how dearly your failure stings at you! Even as I cast myself out into time's river I barely had a hope of success, yet I pursued that hope with all my might! That was ever our difference, old man! You gave up!"
"SILENCE!" He roared, rising to his fullest height, casting his shadow over the entire Hall. "Once, perhaps, but I know the consequences of such folly!" I shook my head at him.
"Do you truly believe, had our positions reversed, that would matter in the slightest when compared to seeing your family once more?"
"Enough! I will tolerate this no longer!" He stepped towards me, and I raised my clawed arms up to defend from his attack. Before he could take a second step, however, his avian legs gave out from underneath him, as he shouted in pain. The Nightmares had worked a foul number on him, and I realized there would be no further battle today.
"Damn it all!" He fell forward, his head crashing down mere feet away from me, the great thundering of his fall echoing in the empty Hall. He struggled a moment longer, before sighing in defeat."I had hoped I'd have more time before you found a way to bind me, yet… here we are. Finish the work, you vile abomination."
"Bind you?" I had thought he followed me here of his volition, to continue the battle and clean my memories of the night as he had done before. Had our magics clashed in some manner, trapping him here?
"Of course you wouldn't know. You just open the path to realms unknown, heeding neither the consequences nor the rewards!" He shook his head from the floor, crown feathers ruffled. "If you did not intend to bind me here, then why send these beasts after me, why not leave yourself?"
"I sent no beasts-!"
"Liar, I can see plainly that one accompanies you even now!" He snapped his beak at my rotund friend.
"I speak the truth, you bastard! Beasts assaulted me the same as they have you on my journey through this realm!" I gestured towards my companion, whose demeanor so contrasted with his vicious kin. "I conjured this being from the remnant crystals they leave behind."
This brought the Bloodraven up short, and he gazed at his small trove with newfound interest. With great effort, he rose enough to inspect his pile with a keener eye.
"You did, did you? Interesting. Most interesting." He straightened up and faced me. "So why are you come, then, if not to slay me?"
I tried to calm myself, to better try and negotiate with him. "To resolve what enmity lies between us, Brynden. I would have my sleep untroubled whilst I work on solving this crisis." His obstinance was still infuriating, but I had forgiven lessers for worse. I owed it to my old teacher to try, at least.
"Your crisis, you mean? Or crises wouldst be better, would it not?" I sighed, but there was little denying he had the right of it. "You have my answer already, ne'er I will aid one such as you."
"Then don't, O Crow!"My wolfsblood was still boiling from earlier. "But cease your interference, at least! If I cannot sleep easy at night, how am I to make progress on fixing my mistakes?"
"Bold of you, assuming you can fix anything." He snorted. "Perhaps a solution has fallen from the sky into your lap, but what might accompany it? Have you any way of knowing? This realm, nearly benign compared it might have been, has brought tragedy already."
"Maybe so," I countered, having tired of hearing him repeat the same arguments. "But if we are damned already, is it not best to try? If you were allowed to leave, would you not flee back to your hidden hollow, to preserve those who have cared for you?" His eyes widened, and he towered over me angrily once more.
"Speak not of the Children!" I was undaunted by his bellowing, for all it showed was that there was still something of man left in him.
"Would you not!?" I called back, using the remnant rage to fuel my objections.
"Of course I would!" He snarled. "Of course I would, had I wings to fly from this damnable dream! I would weave what magic I can, and I would see us through the tide of darkness as best I can! What of it!?"
"I called the realm forth." I said, "And equally, I know how to put it away again. This is my dream, I have concluded, and should I leave it should dissipate. It will await the time I call it forth again." The Crow stilled, and eyed me carefully.
"...What do you want."
I smiled. "An oath, Bloodraven. We are both gods-fearing men, and we know what awaits oathbreakers. So swear unto me that you will leave the dreams and minds of me and mine untroubled, and I shall set you free."
He seemed to ponder this for a while. Eventually he said:
"An oath in turn, then. Swear that you shall truly do all in your power to avert disaster, and reverse this mess, and you shall have my oath." Is that… truly all he would ask? My anger dissipated swiftly; his opinion of me must be low indeed for such to be his ultimatum.
Perhaps a stronger oath might go a ways to rebuilding this bridge…
"I will do my utmost to preserve the world and its magic, the people therein, and drive off the darkness that plagues us. I shall learn all that I can of the magic I have invoked, and seek to safeguard the realm from what future harm it may cause. I swear upon the River Styx."
Even in this strange realm, separated by impossible distances from the waking world, one could hear the thunder rumbling at my words as I could feel the meta-physical shackles closing on my wrists. Bloodraven seemed taken aback, could his trained magical senses could perceive what I had done?
"What is this, boy? I know not that name, but I sense the power it invokes!"
"The River of the Dead, by the lore of some gods I've learned of." I explained. "When binding oaths need to be made, even the gods would swear by the Styx, and breaking such an oath invites nothing but pain for the swearer, by Fate's decree."
"Should such matter to one who has broken Fate once already?" He chided, but I could tell he was unsettled. Bloodraven did not expect me to go to such an extreme, clearly. I did not regret my oath, for it bore nothing I would not have done anyway. The safeguarding of my family would require nothing less than a solution to all the woes upon us, long awaited or newly come.
"I swore it truly, and swore it gladly, Brynden. Swear your noninterference, and let us depart this place, if not as friends, then at least not as enemies." He seemed to mull this over in his mind, contemplative. Eventually, his beak opened once more.
"Why?" Oh, what now? "Why do you treat me so, I who have assaulted you every night since your profane working?" Did he not already see my memories, does he not know the truth of my soul by now!?
"Because we were friends, bastard! You taught me the power to seize destiny, even if you knew naught what I would do! Other friends of mine died on the way to seek you out, and you helped me gain the power to keep that from ever happening again. Or, so I thought…"
"Do you see some kind of debt between us, boy? If so, forget it. I would rather not have someone like you in my debt to begin with."
"There are no debts between friends, Brynden, and friends we were! Even if you do not remember, even if it never happened now, it still did as far as I am concerned! The Future-That-Isn't was my past, and I will not forget the ties I have to it! And that means you too, old man!" The Crow was silent for a good while, seemingly at a complete loss for words.
"I'm not the only one, you know." He spoke, finally. "Others have seen the mark you've made long before it was upon us, many and more have prepared, and nearly all have suffered for it. They seek to use the chaos to their own ends." He snorted. "Many of them, I suspect, will be much like you, delving into new and unfamiliar waters to find some power they can use to better their own situations. If left unchecked, some of them may bring about even greater ruin than the darkness already upon us."
"I will face those threats as they come, old friend." No matter what, I would not falter. I had come too far to give up on the world! "Now please, your oath."
"Very well." He rose into a regal pose, as if he were swearing an oath before his king. Some habits likely die hard for a once-Hand. "I swear, upon my release from this realm, that I shall not trouble the dreams of you, Brandon Stark, nor you kin, nor any you grant your protection to. I shall not send agents to trouble you, nor willingly or knowingly interfere in your affairs. I-," he faltered here for a second, as if weighing his words like gold. "I swear- swear upon the River Styx!"
"Brynden-!" I could hear the thunder rumble in response to his oath, the chains of the Fates coming down to bind him as surely as I. He shuddered under the intangible weight, as if his words had become a physical strain upon him. Before I could question him, he gritted out:
"An oath given and an oath returned, boy. Naught more, naught less." He grunted. "What power do such strange gods have, to be so absent yet exert such a force the Old Gods could not hope to?" A blatant turnabout in topic, but not unwelcome. He truly swore an oath on the styx in turn? I couldn't help but smile; poorly as things had gone until now, perhaps there was hope for my mentor after all.
"Having learned of their traditions, I doubt they know themselves. They follow laws older than them, and the binding of an oath on the Styx may be one of them. I cannot imagine beings such as them could know peace, elsewise."
"Hah!" He barked out. "It is no matter, I suppose. You have my word now, and I don't doubt you find it beyond reproach." He looked down at me, for once not glaring, but simply… observing.
"Naturally," I said. "Shall we be on our separate ways, then?"
Brynden did not know what to make of the boy. Aged as he might have been, the demon was still a boy before him. Seven-and-thirty or seven-aught, compared to his six score years, were equally young. No, perhaps… perhaps it was unkind to continue to say such, even in the privacy of his own mind. The boy was a fool-witch, true, but could Brynden truly claim superiority in the field?
It seemed the boundary of wisdom and folly matches well the line between success and failure; by that measure, Brynden would be the greater fool by far.
For most of his time sequestered in the Land Beyond the Wall, he had dreaded this coming. Like a blister just painful enough to be unignorable, it waited in his future always. He had tried what he could to prevent it, for all he knew he could not break the shackles of the soon-to-be.
It infuriated him once he learned just what this boy had done to cause him such distress ages before it came to pass. What differed between the two of us, that he should succeed where Brynden had failed? Bastard though he was, Brynden bore the blood of dragons. What were wolves when compared to such majesty?
But even after night upon night of torment, the boy had not broken. Even as he tore the memories from the child, he did not break. More than that, he's attempted to reason. The Bloodraven saw through a thousand and one eyes the sky tearing open, sliced through like so much flesh before the butcher's blade. He saw the one responsible, as his spirit latched onto itself, forming an unholy bridge across the ages, and oh how he hated him.
The boy was a fool if he thought he could ever control what he had unleashed upon the world. But like it or not, the world had a hole and gods-knew-what was still leaking in. Brynden knew well his limits; The Wall stripped him of most of his ability outside the True North, and a corpse-tree had only so much power to use.
He could protect the Children from what might come, hopefully. With what greenseers remained among them, it was almost likely. But that would not spare the world a slow end. And even the greatest defenses fall with time.
The boy swore a binding with hardly a second thought, and shattered every expectation Brynden had of someone who would bring the end of all things. The child- Bran, if he intended to do as he said, he deserves this much courtesy.
Beyond that, however, Brynden was still conflicted. The most heartfelt oaths cannot overwhelm nearly four score years of terror, dread, and despair. But an oath made in the manner that the gods would use to bind their word…
It had been a long time since one with so many eyes had been blindsided so thoroughly. It startled him, broke the haze of rage that enveloped him for just a moment. It felt like fog lifting from the land, revealing a path Brynden had long thought lost. He grappled with this new feeling, uncannily familiar yet almost totally alien. What was it?
Oh.
Oh yes, he remembered now.
Hope. It had been a while since he'd known that.
"Boy," Brynden found himself saying, before the brat could unravel this realm. "Do you truly think you can do as you swore? Avert the tragedies to come?" Bran faltered for a moment, having not expected him to speak.
"I do not know, teacher, in truth." Bah, teacher, the day Brynden ever found himself teaching this fledgling was the day he died. "But I have faith. In myself, in magic's power, in the-" He stopped, momentarily unsettled. What could that be about? "In many things, Brynden. I have hope." Hmm. Hope alone would not see us through this storm, brat. No matter that Bloodraven himself felt it fluttering within him.
Still, it was the answer he expected, and far from the worst he could give. It deserved some advice in turn, he supposed. "Beware, child. Remember this, all those who would bear magic's power must pay magic's price." Brynden nodded his great head in dismissal. Bran correctly interpreted this to mean he should get on with things.
He closed his eyes, leaning backwards. For a moment, it seemed he would fall flat on his back, before he was caught by invisible hands. He hung there, suspended in what seemed a kind of repose, before fading from sight.
His fat, colorful companion seemed quite depressed at his conjuror leaving him. Now that Brynden had a chance to examine him, he did seem quite different in nature to the beings that attacked him. Soft where the others were sharp, kind where the others were aggressive.
He swept his wing wide, and gathered his small pile of strange gems to himself, preparing for whatever might happen with the realm's founder having vanished. He knew these gems likely would not follow him into waking, but perhaps those in the trees might make something of them.
From where the boy had been standing a moment ago, there resounded a great cracking, akin to a castle's doors being broken down. Air, no, the space of the realm itself was cracking apart! Were it not a dream realm, Brynden mused, would be a most horrifying sight indeed. As it was, he recognised the chaos beyond this rift.
As the cracking grew louder, faster, Brynden raised his wings and flew into the comforting uncertainty, the swirling metaphors and sweeping plains of the greendream he was familiar with. In this place where time and distance existed not, he returned to his own form, replete with dream-spoils and the glimpse of something far more promising. A future.
I awoke with a start, my body reacting to save me from an imagined fall. Hardly the most unfamiliar wake up for me, but something stood out to me in the feeling of falling. It felt important somehow, like it was an intrinsic aspect of the realm of sleep the Grimoire had conjured. Oh, I desperately wished time existed for me to study each and every question I have of these powers!
Before I could even contemplate 'falling' asleep again, I took notice of my surroundings. I must have been out for a while, to be moved back into my room in the Great Hall already. Before my bed, speaking softly, were Robb, Maester Luwin, and… a pointy-eared smith of some sort. Something told me that last one was related to the seemingly absent power from the Grimoire.
"Finally up, are ye lad?" The smith said, his speech rough. "Must say, ye don' look like much, even fer a new Holder. Canna even be bothered to take care o' yer feathers proper, can ye?"
Wha…?
Could he see me!? I could feel the Mist still shrouding me, what was this?
Robb looked to the smith in confusion. "Feathers, Jorum?" Robb was still seeing what the Mist allowed him, thankfully.
"Ach, lad, ye can't be blind as well as deaf! Look at 'im, I'd know 'im fer a Rito's cousin any day!" The maester seemed positively dumbfounded at the blatant lack of respect, but Robb seemed resigned to it. This smith, Jorum, was bold indeed to speak thusly to the Heir of Winterfell.
Interesting name, as well. Clearly not Westerosi, but also not familiar even to my expanded lexicon. More evidence for some summon from the Grimoire. I do hope it won't make a habit of dragging ordinary folk from their own lives to my person. Or at least only calls on more diplomatic people in future. I'd best cut this off now.
"A simple illusion, nothing more. An unpleasant side-effect to an earlier gift from the Grimoire. Jorum was it?" I queried, steering the conversation away from my own monstrous appearance. "You seem quite clear-eyed, by any chance are you familiar with-,"
"The Celestial Grimoire? Aye." He preempted. Jorum gave a quick formal bow, and introduced himself properly. "Jorum the Blacksmith, greatest in all Hyrule and 'ere to serve at the behest of the Holder of the Grimoire." He looked me dead in the eyes. "That'd be ye, right lad?"
"I believe it is, Jorum. I don't suppose you could point to Hyrule on a map, could you?"
"Hah!" Jorum laughed. "I like ye, lad. Won't even try an' make ye guess what me special talent is! Ye ever get a couple enchanted weapons o' similar fashion, I can fuse the both o' them into one weapon, with all the powers combined!"
"Fascinating; I have to wonder at the mechanisms of such a thing, however."
"Trade secrets, lad. Learned the art from me own master, then took it further than anyone'd ever seen!"
"Please!" Robb cried, interrupting proceedings. "This is not the time for this!" The maester nodded to this, and Jorum grumbled under his breath before shaking his head.
"Aye, the little lord's got a point. So," He grunted. "Seems ye got a mite too cocky, or summat, because ye were knocked clean out by whatever ye got soon after I arrived."
"It was necessary, you must understand." I replied. "I assume you've noticed the harbinger of doom hanging over us?"
"Aye, big bloody red stain in the sky, innit? An insult to Din's sacred color, it is.!" Ignoring the name of what seemed to be yet another divinity expressing interest in my world, I pressed on.
"I believe what I retrieved from that session with the Grimoire holds the key to staying our execution, assuming certain things are true. Speaking of, I'm quite glad the maester is here." Seeing Jorum nod, I addressed the man in question. "You've been keeping records of the phenomenon since its inception, yes?"
"Yes, Bran, as much as I could quantify."
"Tell me, then: does the Trauma lie within, or without, the lunar sphere?" Maester Luwin pondered this for a moment.
"Within, I believe. The path of the moon and the position do not overlap much, but the other night I was fairly certain I saw the moon cross behind the outermost edge of the thing." I grinned, this was fantastic news.
"That's good, brilliant really. It's not too far away to affect with magic."
"I'm sorry, did you imply you can now cast magic upon the moon?" Robb asked, in disbelief.
Not quite." I clarified. "The limits of Hermetic magic, of which I am now quite the scholar, define the lunar sphere as the outermost area capable of being affected by mortal magic. In the land the magic originated from, all things on the lunar sphere and in the celestial spheres beyond were the domain of the Divine. There were a great many disagreements on the true nature of the Divine there, with many religions in competition, but none could deny its existence, nor magic's general ineffectiveness towards anything truly Divine. One of the two Essential Limits of Hermetic Magic."
"I see!" exclaimed the maester. "So as long as the Trauma is within the lunar sphere, it is closer to a mortal problem than a Divine problem, and so may be corrected by mortal magic?"
"That is the hope, dear Maester, but it will take significant effort, and time is in quite short supply. I've some terrible news of my own to share."
"Hear summat odd in those dreams o' yers, lad?"
"Unfortunately, yes. An old acquaintance of mine from my old life, who taught me much of magic then, came to me in my dreams. Warned me of a tide of darkness that now bears down on the world, amongst other things."
"Bad news, indeed, tha' is. Sorta thing tha' brings folk like Ganon outta the woodworks. Bad times are incoming, ta be sure."
"Thankfully, I expect Winterfell to be more-or-less safe. Old magics of protection were laid into this keeps foundations by the Builder, strong enough to hold off the Others for a time. Many of the eldest places in the world have similar protections, and hopefully they will be enough. I do not worry over us, what I worry for is-,"
As if called by the Fates themselves, there was a knocking without the door. Ser Rodrik's voice came through it, seeming exhausted.
"My lord, Wintertown is aflame!"
Boy, this one was tough. Wrapped it up yesterday, woke up today and realized the poem I had slated for this chapter no longer really fit what I had written. So I had to scrape the internet for something that vaguely fit thematically, and this line from the Iliad was about all I could find. If anyone ever has any poetry suggestions for the headers of each chapter, I'm all ears. I'm starting to regret doing that a little bit, but the pretentiousness of opening each chapter with a poem really speaks to me, a pretentious fuckhead myself.
Also, spoiler warning: The world isn't completely fucked by the Heartless arriving. Yes, a lot of it is on fire now, and a whole hell of a lot of people are going to suffer fates worse than death, but there wouldn't be much fun in a story where everything is just completely fucked forever, right? One of the things about mixing magical systems is that you have to split weaknesses as well as strengths, or inevitably one system is going to overpower all the others.
I've extrapolated from how magical defenses have been used to protect against the Heartless in canon, and made it so that the ancient defenses laid into most of the oldest holdfasts of Westeros would serve similar purposes. Notably, this does not include the Wall itself, as it has one major design flaw the Heartless can exploit that the Others couldn't; namely, there's an ocean connecting the Lands of Always Winter to the rest of Westeros. Others can't cross water for some reason, I believe, while there are plenty of aquatic Heartless. Both sides of the Wall are equally fucked.
The Watchers on the Wall, however, are fine. As long as they don't leave on any rangings.
And hey! No new perks this chapter, woohoo! I'd like to keep things slower on that front unless Bran has a pressing need for something outside his toolbox. Like, next chapter mayhaps.
Do not go gentle into that good night, Dylan Thomas
Chapter Nine: That Good Night
"I must come along!"
"Absolutely not!"
This argument had been raging since Ser Rodrik came to my door. I needed to see what kind of horror had been unleashed at my behest, if only to better understand how to fix it. My brother, however, was of another opinion.
We were heading for the stables, where Robb was to meet Ser Rodrik and some few men-at-arms and ride out for Wintertown. It was not the longest hike on foot, but time being of the essence, all horses left in the stables were being prepared for battle. A small troop of five-and-ten men, Ser Rodrik, Robb, and I if I had my way. Summer trotted silently beside us, sensing the danger on the horizon.
"You have as little idea as I do what might be out there, and don't even try to tell me you were trained for combat in that future life of yours!"
"Well, no, but since then-!"
"Bran!" He turned to me, exasperated. "You are a boy of seven name-days! What you see in your mind or soul matters little to what is obvious to my eyes! You cannot swing a sword, nor raise a shield, not on a true battlefield!" Oh brother, a sword was never my weapon of choice.
"This enemy is wrought by magic, Robb!" I countered. "If one thing has been made ever clear to me, it is that only magic may stand up to magic! Had Father not taken his blade, I would trust you with it in battle, but as it stands?" I had some experience with Valyrian Steel, and knew well how effective it could be on otherwise invulnerable enemies. 'Twas the only thing giving me hope for Father at the moment, so in truth I was glad it was with him still.
Robb had no true argument for this, but he was determined to see me safe behind castle walls. A noble, if quite irritating, dedication. "Well, if 'tis magic that's the issue, we'll stop by the maester's turret and grab a handful of those quills from before!" He said, forcefully. "They must have some magic in them,yes? Strap them to our blades and let's be done with it!" he cannot truly be serious, can he?
"Robb, that's hardly what I meant, and you-!"
"Or perhaps those frightful little shadow friends of yours!" He continued, deliberately unheeding. "We face a tide of darkness, whatever that may mean, perhaps those shadows could actually help fight! Would that not suffice?"
"It would not, brother." I said, quite tired of his misunderstanding. I really need to bring everyone up to speed on my power, myself included. If only things could stop happening and let such reflection happen! "They can barely exist, let alone fight. 'Tis a struggle to have them hoist anything greater than a table-knife, and only then with hardly any force. They are, however, able scouts."
"Well, then, why not-,"
"Scouts whose language only I may speak. Which would still necessitate my presence, Robb."
"Oh, never mind, then." He started stalking off faster. I pushed my levitation orb to keep stride with him.
"Robb, stop being unreasonable. I must attend this battle, it is-," He whirled around to confront me.
"This is not your fault, brother! I refuse!"
"Yes, it is!" I cried. "It is, Robb. There has been no doubt of that for some time. I'm not proud of it, but I wouldn't change anything either." Robb came to a complete halt at that, hardly comprehending my words.
"What?"
"I wouldn't. If the Seven Hells themselves broke open, if the Wall fell and let the Others to rampage, if all the laws of nature turned over themselves I would stay this course." I smiled sardonically. "Do you know why?"
"I… honestly cannot imagine, brother."
"Because you are here. Exactly as I remember you, and so is Rickon, and Father, though he is yet away. Mother, Maester Luwin, Ser Rodrik, do you know how much I'd lost?" I gestured to the keep all around us. "Hells, this is the first time I've seen Winterfell in well over a score of years! Can you imagine the sequence of events that was to play out shortly, that in a few short years would leave Sansa the only Stark in the North?"
"What does this have to do with the battle to come?"
"Everything, Robb, because I do not regret my actions even given the harm they have wrought. I know in my heart I would do it again, as many times as it took to make things right. If that is the case, then what choice have I but to see things through here, to the very end?"
"Anything else, Bran, please-!"
"No, brother, and I tire of this back-and-forth. I have been a craven, a witch, and worse for so long now. How can I call myself any kind of a man if I do not face what I have done, and all the consequences thereof?" I gazed off into the distance. "One of the last things Father ever got to teach me, do you remember? The execution of the deserter, where we found our wolves."
"'The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword'?" Robb gathered. "Bran, are you sure-?"
"The exact circumstances are far from a perfect match, but the principle, I believe, is the same. I sentenced Wintertown and more to something terrible through my actions. If I cannot regret them, then I shall act to mitigate the damage I wrought, bringing all that I can to bear." Even up to my own life, I carefully didn't say; I wanted to convince Robb, after all.
"But must it be you?" He asked, plaintively. It amused me that there was some bit of Mother in him after all beyond simple appearance. I'm sure the same could be said of me, and I found that less amusing.
"If you've learned aught of honor at Father's side, you have my answer."
"Damn you." He sighed. "... Very well. But," He glared sternly at me. "You will follow Ser Rodrik's commands to the letter, is that clear?" I was glad to know he would defer to experience in battle. I knew he would grow accomplished in the arts of war, but he was not yet the King in the North he might have become.
"As Myrish glass, my lord."
A smile quirked his lips for just a moment, before being quashed with a fierceness. "Additionally, though I loathe to risk it…" He glanced up at the Trauma hanging over us both in the sky. "I must ask you to petition the… Grimoire for any power that might help us turn the tide."
"We are of one mind on this, brother: I thought the same. In fact…" The alignment of mental spheres allowing the Grimoire access to my mind occurred once more, with truly impeccable timing. I reviewed everything I had learned of the potential enemies we were to tangle with, little though it was. Quickly, I settled on an appropriate plea, one which had the best chance of aiding our quest.
With suitable solemnity, I turned my gaze upwards and spoke unto the Trauma, sat before a field of stars: "O Grimoire, grant unto me a blade to banish this darkness."
I bore the shooting star ripping through my head with what grace I could muster, my face still contorting into an unpleasant tableau. The great tear in the sky tore just a little deeper, I knew, and I instinctively held my hand aloft to receive my newest blessing and burden.
About my wrist materialized a shackle of moonlight, connected intimately to the hilt of a sword. It was entirely unlike a bastard sword, yet it was still the closest comparison. The blade glowed with a bright blue fire, trapped within a caricature of mortal steel. A title resounded between my ears, one I had unwittingly accepted by bearing this sword: Captain-Keeper of the Front Door.
There was more to this weapon than met the eye, even beyond its obvious mysticality. I felt it was also a key to somewhere; The Front Door, presumably. Unfortunately, beyond the title, I knew nothing of the position, its duties or requirements, or even what realm might have given form to such a blade.
Robb stood aside, in awe of the blade. The spectacle had also drawn in the men-at-arms from the stables nearby. They looked upon us and saw the magical blade in my hand, wary and watching. I suppose it would be best to have a little audience for this…
"My lord, behold the Sword of the Front Door." I adjusted my grip, holding the blade such that the moonlight would reflect onto us. Robb was sadly not impressed by this, more intent on deciphering another riddle.
"The Sword of where? What door?"
"That… I wish I knew, for it appears I have some new responsibilities to attend to because of it. 'Twould be nice to know what those are. Anyway," with the quick reflexes of a ninja, I unclasped the blade's shackle from my hand and offered the hilt to my brother. "Take it."
"What!?"
"You said it yourself Robb: I am a boy of seven name-days, I can hardly wield this sword as I am." This was true enough, the blade was quite heavy in my arms. It was only with my monstrous physiology that I had strength to bear it at all. Even given the blade's powers, it simply wasn't going to be useful to me as I am. "You and Jon were always the best swordsmen amongst our siblings, and it is with you I would trust this blade to see its best use."
"Ser Rodrik is more capable by far-!"
"Ser Rodrik is not my brother, Robb. I've lost my family once; never again. Take this blade or I will strap you into it myself." My words were harsh, but earnest. Gingerly, he reached out for the sword's hilt, and-
"Gah!" He exclaimed. Like a rope snare, the shackle closed around his wrist, ensuring he would not lose it in the heat of battle. "What is this weapon?"
"A damned good one brother. Behold:," Swift as I'd been trained, I bent down to grab a good branch from the ground, and swept it towards Robb's legs. In a flash, the sword had come down to block my assault, cleaving my stick in twain. By the gobsmacked look on his face, my brother had understood exactly what had just happened.
"This… this blade just… did it puppet me just now?"
"It defended you, and will do so always. It is alive, in its own way, and knows to protect its wielder. It fights with only the strength its bearer can bring, unfortunately." I grinned. "Unless, of course, it is wielded against creatures of darkness."
"Incredible…," He said. His eyes sharpened. "What happens when it faces down a dark threat?"
"Against the forces of darkness, you will fight with the strength and skill of ten men; A terror on the battlefield, greater even than Barristan the Bold in his prime."
"And are we to face these forces? Have you been given some insight into out plight in the bargain?"
"Alas…" I shrugged, "I cannot say for sure that the 'dark tide' we face is the same as the foes this blade was made to slay. But the Grimoire seemed to think it would help; trusting it will serve is the only path."
"Aye, it seems so. But, Bran!" He looked sharply at me. "You are still without a weapon!"
"I am not so defenseless as all that, you realize?" I laughed. "When we return, let me tell you some tales the Grimoire has shown me, of the lands from which these powers hail." Of these strange lives that aren't. "But yes, I shall be working on acquiring something suitable on our way to town."
"And how do you plan on that?" Ser Rodrik asked, warily walking up to us, eyes fixed on the fiery blade. "Something tells me your ball cannot match a horse at speed."
I shook my head. "Indeed not. But I have a very simple solution in mind."
"This is a terrible idea." Robb said. He was sat astride his horse, with Grey Wind having made his way to our side. Summer stood at the ready by me as I finished up with tying the knots in the ropes attached to my chair. The ropes themselves extended to Summer, forming a sort of rough harness I'd learned from an Academy classmate who worked with canines.
"I assure you, Robb, I am aware." I replied. "But it is a terrible idea with some hope of success; I have some ideas I intend to test along the way."
"Is now the best time for tests, Bran?"
I glanced over to him and shrugged. "Events refuse to slow down enough for me to work in my own time, so I have to rush things. I understand little about how my psychic powers function, and this will be an ideal time to test them in tandem." I gestured towards the rather lengthy stretch of rope connecting me to my wolf. "If I am lucky, I may just regain the shadow of an old ability I treasured. And it is nice to work in tandem with Summer again."
"Summer?" Robb asked. "I hadn't realized you'd finally named him."
"Hmm? Wasn't it the first thing I- Oh. Oh right, I suppose I hadn't told anyone yet." I rubbed my neck sheepishly. "'Twas the first thing I spoke on, the first time. I had forgotten it wasn't already known. My apologies, brother."
"It is no matter, Bran." He said, chuckling. He nodded at Ser Rodrik, who was at the head of a mounted group of household warriors. "Come, then! Wintertown awaits, and its people have need of us. Perform your tests, brother, and try not to fall too far behind." With that, the lot of them set off, thundering down the path out the south gate.
I readied my levitation ball beneath my chair, and encouraged Summer to follow after the horses. He set off at a brisk trot, which began to pull me along after some few seconds. We were traveling at the usual speed I could roll along at, and thus my balance was flawless.
"Speed it up a little, Summer!" Time for the next stage, balancing while at speed. As Summer began to move faster, the roughness of the dirt track beneath us began to hamper me. It took a great deal of mental energy to maintain my upright position as Summer gradually began to match the speed of the party pulling ahead of me.
The perfect time to try a new application of psychic power. I manifested by my speeding chair a small green platform, just to see if it would stay by my side. To my delight, it did, keeping its position relative to me rather than the ground rolling beneath us. Something peculiar caught my eye, however; peering closer, it appeared that the construct had physically attached itself to my chair by means of small cords of mental energy. The cords wrapped about my hands as well, securing me in place. Wellcome, indeed, for I realized looking at my attempts at wings that I hadn't tethered myself to the chair with the rope.
Gently placing that thought aside, I expanded the test platform into a plate an arm-length across, I matched it with another on the opposite side of me. I had a good deal of experience with flight, having shared a crow's eyes no few times in my years. I hoped to achieve some mimicry of the mechanics of it with these platforms. I exerted my control over the planes of mental force, and angled them slightly to catch the wind. Then, I jumped.
The levitation orb could reach a good height on its own, but it had little ability to sustain it alone. With my pseudo-wings, I hoped to at least extend it into a soft glide. This did not play out as I had expected, unfortunately; The psychic construct failed to catch enough air to offset my weight. I fell slower than I usually would, but I fell all the same.
I landed roughly back on the ball, pain from my unhealed ribs nearly making me drop my constructs entirely. Thankfully, I managed to regain control and avoided a nasty accident.
"Alright, time for the second test." I hadn't come into this plan with only one idea in mind, though I had dearly hoped it would be that simple. My next trick would be far more concentration-heavy.
Adjusting my wing profile slightly, I once more leapt into the air. This time, instead of simply hoping the wings would catch me, I utilized the second aspect of levitation: the Thought Bubble. A psychic can always allow their thoughts to lift them up, after all.
I kept an iron grip on the armrests of my chair, and on the tethers of my Thought Bubble which connected nicely to the psychic cords of the wings. Usually, this technique could allow a psychic to float gently down from great heights without fear. I intended something else for the weightlessness of this power.
The Bubble stretched over my head, connected to both hands by force of will, feeling almost like a blanket over me to catch my uplifting thoughts. This time, I managed a stable glide- not true flight, but a far easier manner of transportation than trying to keep steady on the ground.
Looking down, the significantly smaller figure of Summer seemed untroubled by the effort of pulling me along, and I was satisfied. I looked around further, feeling nostalgic. Realistically, it had been a week at most since I'd last flown as a crow, but I knew I likely never would again. This was far from a terrible compromise, of course.
The trees of the Wolfswood stretched on like an ocean of greenery to my right, while ahead of me orange and reds blazed as Wintertown signaled its peril to all who would listen. Looking up, my psychic construct cast the moon in its own verdant shade, the red Trauma nearby becoming closer to the rust brown of dried blood.
At this moment, I felt the Grimoire come into alignment once more. Last time, it seemed I'd been far too specific, so I should try something a bit simpler now.
"Let me fight." I whispered into the night. I felt the lightest of tremors echo in my head, the pain almost negligible now. Perhaps this power would be underwhelming, or perhaps I was simply growing accustomed to my situation. I felt the energy flowing through me, through my blood…
My blood…
By God, my blood was on fire!
My constructs vanished in a puff of green mental energy, leaving me vulnerable to the earth's tender mercies once more. I felt myself grow unsupported, vaguely saw my wooden seat flying away from me, and felt the heat and flame coming closer; It matched the boiling in my blood.
I hit the ground, roughly tumbling over my own useless lower half, the bruised bones incomparable to the burning, tearing, roaring fire within. Something primal, dark, had been awoken within me; the beast within. In my hands manifested a wretched thing, the withered paw of some terrible clawed beast.
I lay in agony, among the burning buildings and the screaming of men. Within, a beast raged against my will, animal wrath boiling my blood. I looked up, meeting the moon's gaze with my own. It gave me a little strength, its gentle light; I breathed deep, and focused on quelling the monstrous power resonating with the claw.
Jack was scared out of his wits. Life had not been kind to him since an alehouse fire claimed his parent's lives two years past, and now reminders of that day were dancing all around him. His hometown, in flames. And between the flickering embers?
There were monsters!
Hideous beasts of darkness, the shadows themselves having arisen from the depths to claim them! Piercing yellow eyes and sharp black claws had claimed more than one familiar face already. Jack saw it as nothing less than a miracle he had survived this long.
Sadly, it wasn't to last. He'd run out of places to hide, and he was now trapped between a horde of demons and a wall of fire. The sweat and tears poured down his soot-stained face, as he prayed for his life. He stood before the hunched over beasts, waiting to pounce, and prepared to meet the gods.
Child, come hither!
A deep voice like starlight called out to him, leading him… through the flaming barrier!? He trembled at the thought; he faced certain death through there! Jack must be going mad in his final moments! From the depths of the horde, a taller figure emerged; lanky and lean, yet dark as pitch the same as the creatures, with the same burning yellow eyes.
Thou shalt face worse than death if thou keep thither, child! These flames shall not touch you, I swear!
He saw what the dark things had done to people; saw how their bodies simply dissolved. Jack had hoped their souls, at least, might be at rest. Seemingly, he had hoped in vain. Still, He hardly wanted to follow his parent's fate…
Quickly, now!
The tall one dove suddenly at him, the rest of the creatures surged into motion, and Jack was out of time to ponder. It terrified him to contemplate, but he judged the fire to be a kinder fate than whatever these monsters promised. Stumbling backwards, he scrambled through the fiery curtain.
To his surprise, the strange voice's reassurance was accurate. The fire parted before him, warm but not painful. It was a familiar, pleasant warmth, not unlike the hearthfire his parents once kept. The memory brought some pain, but not as much as Jack was expecting. This place seemed almost… beyond such pains.
Looking around, he saw that he was encased in a ring of red-orange fire, while the ground he stood on was oddly verdant, untouched. In the center of the ring, there was a bush. The bush bore no leaves or berries, but was wreathed instead in ethereal flame, like the impression of a candle. It was blue with the promise of intense heat, but somehow kept itself well in check, and the flames flowed like water about the boughs.
Thou wilt be safe here, child, but I know not how long. We must be swift.
The voice sounded once more; It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. Yes as the flames danced around him, Jack knew the voice could only come from the burning bush.
"W-who're you? What're you?"
I am an angel of God, come to aid the plight of your land.
Jack's eyes grew wide as saucers. The gods hadn't abandoned them! But…
"I never heard of a angel, before! D'you serve all th' Old Gods, too!?"
Not quite, young one. I am a servant of the Lord Almighty, who sits the Throne of Heaven.
Jack frowned. He didn't know all of those words, but they sounded a bit like what the holy man from the castle said, those few times he attempted to convert townsfolk. The septer? The angel's presence was far more convincing than any of his sermons had been, however.
"So… Yer with the Seven-and-One then? I dunno much about 'em, but if they're willing to help us, I'll join the faithful!"
That is well of thou to say, child, but first we must gather what townsfolk may yet live.
"Uh? Out there?" Jack pointed beyond the wall of fire surrounding them. "Those things'll tear me to bits!"
Indeed, the night is dark, and full of monsters. But be not afraid, for I shall be thy shield and sword in this task. If thou canst but have faith, all things are possible.
Jack trembled; the angel had steered him right enough when his luck had run out, but he didn't know that he'd be up to this task. "W-why me? W-will the folk even listen!?"
I will teach thee what to say.
Jack stared into the depths of the bush; the swirling flames of ethereal light dancing about its limbs radiated comfort, relief. Maybe… maybe he could have faith. Just enough, for this. He had little else to lose, after all.
"W-what should I do?"
Firstly, thou shouldst pluck a branch from off my bough.
In for a penny, in for a stag. Jack reached through the warmth of the flames, surprised yet not when they refused to burn him. Instead, the flames caressed him gently, reminding him of something he'd nearly forgotten: the touch of his mother.
Tears poured down his face as he reached deeper into the bush than what should have been possible, or necessary. His mind was flooded with an uncontrollable joy, enraptured; He was in a state of divine bliss, and he felt the Heavenly Father's love for him. Eventually, he grabbed hold of something solid, and pulled with all his might.
From out the burning bush came a branch, growing longer and longer 'til it matched Jack in height, some four feet in all. Longer than the bush it came from, it seemed more a cane fit for a shepard than a raw branch.
With this staff in thy hand, thou shalt work the wonders of God. Go forth, and lead these people to safety. Even now, thy earthly lord rides to thy aid with blade afire; It would be best if he had a people left to save.
Jack nodded, a solemn gesture that was entirely unfitting for a child his age. For just a brief moment, he had seen the truth of beauty, the essential nature of a God he could believe in.
With the kindling of faith in his heart, he marched out, uncaring of the flames.
He knew they could not touch him. Not so long as he walked the sevenfold path.
This chapter actually got done on Tuesday! This means I already have a head start of like 1k words on next week's chapter! That is not going to stay the same, because I recently came into the money to restart my FFXIV addiction. Ideally, I will still have a chapter every week, but the expansion's dropping soon and need to be there. I hope you all understand.
Anyway, this chapter marks the start of direct Divine intervention in this story. Frankly, I can't have Bran get a magic from a setting where everything 13th century European folks believed in was true and not include the servants of God. I understand if the fictionalization of a widely-held system of belief is upsetting to some people, but this is a story of a pagan lord wielding strange magic and God is a verifiable phenomenon in at least one world he's connected to. HE's gonna have some concerns.
Additionally, I did some reading as to how the Divine was handled in Ars Magica, and it is fascinating. Even the highest angels don't have the full picture of God's plan, and no one is even capable of knowing the full truth of it all. Which leads neatly into how the Jewish, the Christians, and the Muslims can all hold the same level of support from the Heavens even as they war with each other constantly. Faiths can Schism and still have Divine support.
By this logic, I have decided that angels, in interactions with mortals, generally take the path of least resistance when matching the things they know to what mortals can comprehend. Thus, God and his angels will neatly conform to the mold the Faith of the Seven has left in culture, given the similarities to medieval Christian churches. Guess how many different sects will form almost immediately! Also, naturally, corrupt people cannot hold holy power, so basically none of the 'Most Faithful' will be delivered by God's grace, which I think will be quite funny as they try and maintain a position in the faith as other people are out performing literal miracles.
Also, a light touch of Bloodborne, as a treat. The fullness of the gains from that perk will be made apparent next chapter. In case you haven't noticed, a rule I've decided to abide by is 'the first perk from any system drags along all free perks that make sense'. Those perks won't get identified, however, until they show up in the prose. I think I have already broken this rule once, but fuck it I'm an amateur. Gotta flub up to learn up, right?
Destruction-
400- (Keys to the Kingdom) Sword of the Front Door- The Front Door is the vanguard of the rest of the House against
the endless tide of Nothing. By buying this sword you become the Captain-Keeper of the
Front Door. This Blade of Blue Fire can help you navigate the Void as well as empower you to
fight with the force and skill of ten ''yous" when you fight creatures made of elemental
nothingness or darkness.
100- (Bloodborne) Beast Roar- A beast's claw converted into a Hunter's Tool by the hunter called Irreverent Izzy. Taking two bullets worth of blood to use, the hunter will borrow the strength of the terrible undeaddarkbeasts, if only for a moment, to blast surrounding foes back with a powerful roar.
This roar can also deflect projectiles if timed correctly, even small boulders, but it doesn't really workwith anything much heavier than that. The indescribable sound is broadcast with the caster's ownvocal cords, which begs the question, what terrible things lurk deep within the frames of men?
Hmmm. The word "angel" is derived from the Greek word for "messenger." Perhaps the agent of the One True God should call itself a messenger instead of using a word unfamiliar to its interlocutor.
Hmmm. The word "angel" is derived from the Greek word for "messenger." Perhaps the agent of the One True God should call itself a messenger instead of using a word unfamiliar to its interlocutor.
You know, I swear I read somewhere the faith of the seven had the concept of angels, but I cannot find that source anywhere anymore. I figured the angel was gathering information from the closest local approximate of the Truth, but you now seem to have a very good point.
However, I think I'll still keep it in because I like Jack's line there. Call it a blunder, angels are grand but still imperfect beings. Also I haven't revealed his name yet but this is, by at least one source, the angel that guided Moses in the form of the burning bush. He likes this form.
I'll try to just avoid thinking about the Abrahamic Tyrant as analogous to the one in this story, as I understand it's from one of the settings the Grimoire pulls from but... It leaves a bad taste in my mouth still.
I'll try to just avoid thinking about the Abrahamic Tyrant as analogous to the one in this story, as I understand it's from one of the settings the Grimoire pulls from but... It leaves a bad taste in my mouth still.
I am sorry for that, especially because the past few days have only given me more ideas for how to develop a Faith of the Seven with the backing of Real Actual God.
And because of the rules of Ars Magica, you don't even have to imagine Him as the Abrahamic Tyrant at all, or as one of the less u pleasant ones, like the creative force from Gnosticism, or the intangible Plane of Forms from neo-Platonism if you wish!
Go back to real old times, and you can imagine him as Ahura Mazda of Zoroastrianism. Or some wacky things, so long as it features an all knowing, all benevolent, all loving creator figure.
The big thing of Ars Magica is that no one really has it right, and even the angels aren't much help because they aren't God and thus have only very limited insight into His plans. I assume a similar thing is true of Hell and the Devils forces.
In this story, I will mostly be showing the Heavenly Father as filtered through the lens of the Seven, with all that entails. Angels may take the form of one of the Seven to spread God's word in a way locals will understand, and suchlike. The Devils minions are also the minions of the Lord of Seven Hells or whatever is the source of evil in Westerosi theology.
Plus, who knows what else I'm going to have to do! There are a few versions of heaven, hell, angels, and demon in the Grimoire, and I'm going to have to find a way to make them all play nice with each other. So I'll need to see what I can lay as groundwork to make that easier.
Thank you for commenting, every comment, even critical ones, make my heart sing with joy!
Robb, or perhaps the Sword, drove off another fierce black claw tearing at him, sundering the slender black beast. Seeing the creature's corpse swiftly dissolving, he turned about to see his brother tumbling out of the sky and into the depths of Wintertown. His heart pounded out a terrible cacophony as dark smoke rose about him.
Suddenly, the Sword forced him about once more, allowing no time for concern. It stabbed downwards between the thin, insectile horns wavering on the small creature's brow; One of the common variants, being by far the most numerous of their foes. The slender ones seemed to be the captains among the horde, and Robb had been prioritizing their elimination.
They had already lost two men by the time everyone realized how little use mortal steel was on these beasts. Fortunately, the wicked creatures seemed to still have some physicality to them. Shields were effective enough at driving them back, so long as their claws couldn't gain a solid grip. That lesson cost another life.
Grey Wind, oddly enough, found his claws and teeth finding purchase where steel had failed. Perhaps the old stories had some truth to them, that direwolves truly had some magic in them. Robb wished they had trained enough to take true advantage of the fact, but he wasn't expecting his wolf to be a main combatant. Fortunately, he was trained enough to not get underfoot and was a terror to lesser beasts, and that must be enough.
The current tactic for the men was thus: Huddle behind their shields, funneling the monsters to Robb. Thus engaged, he would fight in tandem with Bran's Sword and decimate the beings before him in a blaze of blue fire. This had worked well enough, until their enemies dropped through the ground into the shadows themselves.
Cast into shadows, the beasts were unable to harm anyone. Unfortunately, neither could the blade of blue fire touch them. This allowed the creatures to quickly outflank them, as yet another of Robb's men learned when one of the commanders dove out of the ground behind him, and kicked his head clean off. It seemed all their talons were equally sharp. Grey Wind avenged the man with swiftness, tearing the creature's own neck open and letting it fade to mist like the others.
If this kept up, Robb would be returning to Winterfell alone. Something had to give, and soon. Robb could only hope his brother was alive, for he might be their only hope now.
"Men!" he shouted out. "Push forward, into the town!" They would simply have to brave the darkness and the flames, gather who they could, and pray.
Robb, Ser Rodrik, Grey Wind, and three men-at-arms.
These demons were unlike any foe any of them had fought, had even conceived of in childhood fantasy. Great dark orbs with nightmarish faces vanished and reappeared at will, tearing apart anything they could get their wicked tendrils on. Clouds of dark fog like miniature storm-clouds, bearing wretched eyes, took possession of mundane objects and twisted them into suitable vessels to ruin their foes. And, just once, in the distance… A giant stood tall.
A great and terrible beast, with a great head of thorns, stood tall over the town through a gap in the buildings. A mighty shaking of the earth occurred as it stood tall, clutching a burning orb. It raised its fiery charge into the sky, where it exploded outward to rain a hail of darkness upon Wintertown. Where they fell, fire sprouted, and fat, winged things with heads of fire congregated about the greatest devastation, including the area Bran fell.
It wasn't far, now.
The rotund flaming blighters assaulted their position with a volley of flame, while some kindled themselves into a bonfire and charged straight into their formation. Robb leapt into the air, having quickly learned how best to trust the blade. Faster than his own eyes could track, he swung for the oncoming flames in turn, cutting them all in twain. As he landed, his knights gathered around him. It took a second to recover from the strain that such a feat placed on his arms.
He knew they were his knights because he was damn well going to reward each of them with something for their leal service here. He had vastly underestimated just how mighty this danger would be, and now they were all suffering for it. Gods, he hoped Bran was alright. They were close now to where they had seen him fall, but there was no sign of him yet.
Their shields held off a barrage of flaming bolts, what seemed like a lifetime of experience driving their actions. They were melting in their leather armor, and their shields burned their arms, but they refused to give in to despair. They were all determined to see the dawn's light once more, if only to spite the darkness surrounding them. Grey Wind huddled behind the men, not willing to face the fire directly.
The enemies would likely have routed them if they stayed at range, but they were as hot-headed as their demeanor suggested. Every few volleys, some would get so infuriated they burst into flame, charging their position themselves. These Robb would dispatch with only moderate difficulty, magic sword in hand.
The Sword was guiding him, yes, but it was teaching him also. Having what was essentially a tutor guide his blows into place in live combat was remarkably helpful in discerning flaws in technique. He would need every ounce of skill he could muster to survive the night, so it was not unwelcome.
When few enough creatures remained in their nest of destruction, the ruined tavern hall visible through the collapsing walls, Robb broke the line to charge the beast's position. The shield by his side deflected their projectiles, missing even one would spell his death. Sadly, his own skill was not up to the task of keeping himself safe.
In the most improbable move Robb had ever seen, his sword-arm swung up to intercept the fireball bearing down on him. Guiding him to cut straight through the attack, he found himself beset on both sides by a half-fireball each, missing his shoulders by a hair. For a moment, he swore he could hear the world roaring in approval.
His men did not curse or act surprised behind him, and even Robb was slowly growing inured to the absurd feats this blade drove him to. There were only so many times you could accidentally replicate a bard's retelling of battle before it started to lose its luster.
Frankly, Robb finally thinks he knows why heroes' egos grow to mythical heights: They face situations where they know for certain they could not survive without supernatural skill. He wondered if any bards would even have to embellish anything to make a story out of this night.
He wondered if any bards would survive this night.
After that, destroying the remaining floating fire-lobbers was child's play; Their dark flesh posed as little resistance to the Sword of the Front Door as the shadows had. Gods willing, he'd learn the reason for the name one day. His men rushed to join him as he entered the ruined alehouse, searching for any lost souls.
They had found a good few so far, but it was still a pittance to the full population of Wintertown. There wasn't a way to keep moving and still protect the people they'd found, but clearing the surrounding demons from the area usually gave a brief respite, and the survivors had a chance to run.
Robb truly had no idea if they had truly saved anyone, it was quite likely they had all perished the moment his back was turned. But this was all he could do, the only thing in his power. He needed to find Bran,
His brother had landed somewhere in this vicinity, he was certain. Alas, he would not dare order his party to split to search. Without the Sword, his men were cattle before a slaughter. There was nothing for it but to comb every inch of this place for a sign of his whereabouts.
"Alright men, let's think and-," Suddenly a crash came from the other side of the tavern, preceded by a roar unlike any beast any of them had ever heard. Over the blazing bar soared a creature twice the size of any man, yet still the most man-like of any dark beast they'd seen. It wielded a strange sword of alien make: one-handed but the size of a greatsword, made with a strange blue metal, and rounded on the very end, making it useless for stabbing.
Instincts flaring, Robb raised the Sword before seeing the way the beast was flying. It wasn;t facing him, it had been launched backwards into him! Mattering little either way, Robb didn;t question his fortune as he cleanly beheaded the monster. He was grateful for the assistance, and he had a damned good idea where it had come from as well. There was only one person he could think of possibly capable of dealing with these beasts.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the fire dimmed. The beast inside, growing somnolent once more.
But I knew it was there, now; it could wake in an instant. But now, I was in control. My Occlumency, my inner light, these things would keep it in check, now that I know what lurks within. With a couple more deep breaths for luck, I sat up as best I could. My chair was nowhere to be seen, or perhaps it was and the fall had rendered it to splinters and kindling for the town.
I still hurt in all the places I could hurt, and had gained many new and exciting injuries, mostly lacerations of varying severity. I would laugh if my ribs wouldn't crack with the effort, the irony was palpable.
Blood. Always it comes back to blood and fire. Perhaps it was a curse of magic in this world, that it all must come back to those two base elements. The power pulsed warmly in my blood now, akin to burn scars in my veins. The beast had left its mark, and I could still feel a shade of the intense, boiling heat that had run through my body.
Alas, my meditations had taken overlong, and my chance to Rally was gone. A technique inscribed into my flesh, it would speed my healing in combat so long as I could introduce fresh blood to my wounds. Usually by cutting it out of my enemies. Gruesome, but effective. Would've made the Mountain invincible, certainly.
The only blood covering me was my own, and there was enough of it to be concerning. For the average man, anyway; with my monstrous physiology I knew it would take a bit more than this to put me down. Still, there was nothing for it but to press on, regroup with Robb and his men. Dark fire began to fall a short distance away; I'd best hurry.
I began the process of crafting a new steed for myself. For lack of suitable materials, it would have to be a purely psychic construct. Summoning a platform of appropriate height and struggling atop it, cursing my injuries all the while, pulling my legs up after me and getting them situated where they wouldn't get in the way, took several minutes in all. Finally, I was able to call a levitation ball beneath my platform and gain some small mobility back.
It wasn't much suited for combat, unfortunately, as creating straps from platforms would be too great a strain on my mind and body. My next task would drain him even more so; I called upon an old technique taught only to the boldest Hunters. I grew faint and dizzy as I condensed a portion of my blood into magically reactive ammunition. I imagined the beast's paw still clutched in my fist trembling in anticipation.
Having touched the Trauma and supped on the Grimoire's knowledge several times now under the auspices of Occlumency, I had a better idea of just how these powers resolved themselves into me. To my dismay, it was not as simple a matter as memories and instincts. All powers and gifts I'd received, if they imparted a new ability unto me, bore the stain of old memories.
Some, as with the ritual magic I had been granted, came with a lifetime's worth of true memories, as pure knowledge was inseparable from experience. Others, like my shadow-calling, bore just enough memory for me to begin to use the power. There was little I could do to increase my power there save having a better bloodline. The sort of thing the Grimoire alone could fix, I knew.
In every case, those traces of memories still bore a connection to another life. I couldn't always glean much, a subtle scent here, a flashing vision there, but they were not my memories. They couldn't be, the lives they suggest were far too strange, too foreign to be mine. And yet…
A barking from a short distance away brought me out of my maudlin contemplations. This didn't matter, saving Wintertown mattered most now. The barking turning to growls and the sounds of violence lent speed to my steed, as I rolled down to where I was all but certain Summer was. I'd need his aid to find the others.
I found Summer locked in combat with a full squadron of living shadows, struck through with earth and swimming through the ground like water. Instantly, I could tell these beasts were of a very different breed to the shadows I could conjure. Where my little friends were insubstantial, only half-existing in this realm, these things were darkness objectified. Through the connection I shared with the shadows, I could feel them as they trembled in fear of these creatures, begging me not to call them forth while the darkness remained.
The forces of darkness seemed to be led by a truly massive sphere of darkness, with many long tendrils undulating in hideous patterns. I could not see its face from where I was, if it even had one. The earthen shadows were pinning Summer in, he couldn't get to any of them well enough to bite down, and his claws were glancing off rocky armor. The great orb fired a great blast of darkness towards Summer, while the lesser beasts were keeping him from dodging.
Thinking quickly, I manifested a green platform in the path of the blast, hoping a construct designed to hold a man's weight could serve as a shield. A lance of pain ripped through my skull as the attack connected with the psychic shield. The shield dropped, but the dark energy it held off was no more.
The great dark orb turned about, to gauge this new threat. It did have a face, a terrible, monstrous face with wicked sharp teeth and hideous yellow eyes like all its brethren. It cried a wordless challenge to me, and I decided to respond in kind.
The Beast's Roar, the name of the claw I'd been given, was an interesting tool. It works its magic on its wielder in the moment it is fed with the requisite amount of blood. I pressed two of the little blood cartridges I'd made into the palm of the paw, and the disembodied thing clutched itself around both the blood and my hand. It reached deep down into me, to where I'd leashed the beast within.
It was a fine line to walk, to rouse the beast just enough to do what I needed. It rose up within me, but the tool constrained it; it could lend its power to my voice. And, oh, what power it lent it.
The force of my voice barreled over my enemies, stunning them senseless. Little damage was apparent, but all Summer needed was the opening. In a shower of dark matter, he tore through the downed earthlings. While the rampage was going on and I tried to soothe my aching throat, something shiny caught my eye. These monsters…
They were leaving crystals of their own upon death! This put to rest any doubt as to their origins; they shared a homeland with the dream-beasts. But how, I was unsure. The dreamlings were beings of pure thought and concept made real through the liminal space of dreams. Whence, then, spawned this darkness?
I had no time to ponder that mystery, unfortunately. The lesser beasts were dead, but the dark ball had recovered. I shouldn't use the Roar again so soon, and Summer could not leap high enough to reach the creature with claw or fang. Just when I thought the monster would unleash a barrage of dark energy, it… vanished? For a moment I believed the blood loss, broken bones, and general stress of the past day had finally caught me. There was just a dark cloud where the creature once was.
A cloud that wasn't going away.
No, a cloud that was approaching very fast!
By the time it dawned on me what was happening, it was far too late. The monster reformed just a foot away from where I sat, and an aura of dark light burst out from it and flung me away, destroying my psychic seat. I crashed harshly into the wall of a tavern, slowly burning down. What few ribs remained uncracked had swiftly had that corrected as the breath was knocked out of me. The beast in me roared in anger, threatening to awake, but even if it did I was hardly in a state for it to survive.
The world spun dizzily, the beast approached slowly, seeming to savor its victory as it gnashed its teeth. After everything, would this really be how it ends? In my despair I failed to notice what was burbling out of the ground beside me until I felt a tug at my arm.
I nearly fell over on my side when I saw what had snuck up on me. Hideous, misshapen homunculi, all bulbous heads and spindly appendages. They were crawling unsettlingly out of a hole that seemed somewhat divorced from the ground. Before I could ponder whether I was to die by two monstrosities, I felt a strange sense of relief from my inner beast. It recognized these things, and through it - plus a dash of Occlumency - so did I!
The Messengers, come bringing gifts once more! Helpful little things, they were. In their tiny hands laid an ornate silvered cane and a small contraption of unusual make. The contraption fit nicely in one hand, and getting a grip on it made me certain it was a projectile thrower of some kind. The cane…
I grinned. The ninja in me could recognise a hidden weapon. The cane was ornate but solidly built, with a decidedly lethal blade making up the main shaft. Not only that, but there were seams at odd angles along the body, promising most interesting possibilities. I'm bloody, beaten, bruised, and broken…
But I had a chance, now.
Even without legs, the great sphere felt like it was lumbering towards me. Sneakily I loaded a single bullet into the contraption, saving the last two for an emergency Roar. Ideally, I'd only need one shot. It came close enough to brush me with its tentacles, but I doubted it was going for a gentle caress.
In contrast to its sedate locomotion, it struck with wolflike speed with its tendrils. I diverted its strike with my new cane, tangling its appendages with themselves and bringing my other hand round with the cartridge-thrower. A pull of the trigger and the beast roared in pain at the ragged hole I'd blown in its head. Unfortunately, this monster seemed a cut above the rest, as it still held on to life. Still, it backed off with far greater speed than it approached with, out of reach of my cane.
Or so it thought.
My wicked grin grew yet wider as I flipped the cane about in my grip and triggered the little switch I'd felt, while the beast tried to conjure more dark energy. In an instant, the cane's segments snapped out of alignment, revealing the wicked sharp, studded whip that was its trickiest form. A difficult weapon to master, and even my genin experience had little to offer in aid. Still, I need not be precise here.
With a jerk of my hand, the bladed whip lashed out at the grotesquerie, and again, and again. My arm burned with the exertion, but in only a few attacks I had severed several tendrils; the beast's energy vanished before it could gather. Rather than blood or dark ichor, these infernal beings radiated a strange smoke from their wounds. Each stroke elicited another shriek of pain from it.
It had had enough abuse, and dissipated once more, aiming to hit me with another charge. I readied myself for it, there was no time for a proper platform. My levitation ball would have to serve. As its hideous face emerged from thin air in front of me, I had already leapt far above it. It didn't abort its flash of light, giving me a precious few seconds to pull one final trick.
Concentrating with all my will, bringing the smallest aspect of my beast to the fore, and further. Out of my soul and into my body, I forced my beast to shape my flesh. It took unbelievable focus and terrible strain; the world shrank to just me and my prey. My claws grew sharper, my muscles stronger, and I plunged downwards into the beast as the pulse of dark light faded.
My claw dug into the dark flesh, feeling like oil on my skin. As I tore a crystal from its grotesque form, it finally began to dissipate properly into the smoke they bled. It softened my fall enough that I didn't break anything new, but every bone in my body still cried out in agony. I shoved the crystal roughly into a pocket; I couldn't even pretend to give a toss about that while I wrangled my inner beast back under control.
I had only just barely managed that much when I was suddenly surrounded in a ring of blue fire.
Could I please just rest for five minutes!?
I threw myself back into the air on a ball of mental energy, only to have my heart plummet as the ring followed me, undulating unpleasantly. As I rose higher, the fire began to still its odd movements, and acting on a hunch I dropped my levitation just as it came to a full stop. I was proven correct when I fell right out of the trap while the space within it was obliterated in a surge of flames. I caught myself swiftly with a thought bubble.
The ring, foiled, converged upon itself, forming the shape of a giant man in the space before the tavern. Easily the match of the Mountain That Rides, or even his greater. His wings were almost comically small, but his sword was very non-comically large. I doubt I would prove his better in swordplay, to be sure. His skin was as dark as his brethren's, his eyes as piercing.
This might be troublesome.
For lack of any better options, I hurriedly jabbed my last two cartridges into the palm of the Beast's Roar, and felt the discomfort in my throat grow as I forced it to deform beyond its limits once more. As I screamed, the humanoid form was thrown back, crashing through the wall of the burning alehouse.
I rolled quickly after, uncaring of the damage to my numbed legs, to try and end this battle before it could begin in earnest. Yet it seemed I was fretting over nothing, as a very familiar blade freed the monster's head from its shoulders.
As the remnant smoke cleared, I saw Robb amongst a much reduced company. The remaining men were battered, bloodied, but somehow unbroken. I wondered whence their resolve had sprung? As my brother locked eyes with me, and I saw the figure he cut with that blade, perhaps it was not so unreasonable.
His relief quickly morphed to concern as he beheld my bloodied form. "Bran! What the hell happened back there!?"
"The Grimoire, Robb. Sometimes the powers it grants are gentle enough in delivery. Other times, less so." My concentration faltered, my levitation ball popping. "Damn it all! I don't suppose there's any salvageable furniture in here?" Robb rushed over to me with a hurriedness I doubted was really warranted.
Wait, did he get taller? Oh no, I'm lying down. When'd I do that?
"Bran! — you ok—-!? Bra—! B—, st-y —th u–!" Robb's voice was oddly distant for how close he was. His face was about the only thing I could see, now. My shoulders were shaking oddly, I certainly wasn't telling them to do that but I hadn't the energy to tell them to stop either.
The last thing I saw was a flash of beautiful light and the caress of soft down, then darkness.
Man, fight scenes are hard. I hope I did the flashy action of both Bloodborne and Kingdom Hearts justice here, but I just don't know. Anyway, comment your critiques and commendations, for it gives me strength in times of trouble. Got this done early but still released it no time, but the hope of developing a backlog is transforming into a distant fantasy as today is the day of FFXIV Dawntrail Early Access and that will probably be my life from now on for at least the next fortnight. Don't worry, I'll keep to my schedule (hopefully)!
If it hasn't been made clear yet, one of the rules I'm abiding by is that any perk coming from a new setting drags along all the free perks that can be gotten at that point in time, but they remain unrevealed until they're relevant. There's a few of those still waiting in the wings. I did this because it's nice to have a few things that can be broken out for a quick surprise without relying on the Grimoire as the sole crutch of last-minute power-ups.
Oh, yes, Heartless appearing in this chapter: Shadows, Neoshadows, Darkballs, Possessors (mentioned), Darkside (briefly), Flame Cores, Earth Cores (tbh I forgot they could Tower sorry), and a single, lonely Invisible.
Benevolence
Free- (Bloodborne) Rally-
After being injured in some fashion, you have a short window of time where bathing yourself in the blood of your enemies will trigger mild recovery. Something to the effect of the blood spraying out from viscerally hacking into a target will do.
It's never very much healing, and you're unlikely to fully recover from anything too significant, but every little bit helps. You don't have to be drenched in blood, but the amount required to trigger Rally will be quite noticeable.
Destruction
Free- (Bloodborne) Blood Bullets-
At any time, you may sacrifice a significant, but not life threatening, percentage of your blood to create a small supply of five blood bullets. When loaded into a weapon, they will change shape to match the necessary ammo type, and function as normal.
A blood bullet loaded into a pistol will match the caliber, become a shell for a shotgun, and even fuel for a flamethrower, though is unable to become anything too complex. This ability is unable to make blood bullets in greater numbers, as using it again will cause previous bullets to lose cohesion.
A single blood bullet is unable to take the shape of significantly larger projectiles, such as cannonballs, but if multiple bullets with a combined mass equal or at least close to the desired projectile are placed together, they will fuse and assume the proper shape.
Free- (Bloodborne) Visceral Attack-
Due to the use of blood ministration on you, or just because your status demands it, your inner beast has awoken. As with almost all hunters, and no matter which Aspect you chose, you have the ability to draw on some of this power with great focus and strain.
This allows you to perform very minor feats when given time, such as partially transforming your arm into a stronger, clawed form to deliver a terrible strike. The amount of focus and strain this requires means it's often useless in battle, outside opportunities you create however.
Free- (Bloodborne) Gifts From the Little Ones-
To make sure you're ready for the hunt, you are given a choice of one of three trick melee weapons, and one of two projectile weapons. The two weapons of your choosing will appear in your possession after beginning your journey.
The first trick weapon you may choose is the Saw Cleaver; a saw with large teeth that can flip open to be wielded similarly to a sword. Saws are common amongst hunters for the grisly wounds they leave. The second is the Hunter's Axe; a large hand axe with a handle that can be extended so it may be wielded with two hands. It's a sturdy weapon, reliable in the hands of the strong. The third trick weapon is the threaded cane; a sturdy metal cane that can transform into a bladed chain whip. It takes skill to wield the threaded cane, but allows the hunter to strike at great range. The first projectile weapon is the Hunter Pistol; a quick, simple, high damage weapon that's handy at short to medium range. This pistol is ideal for close range precision against agile enemies. The second projectile weapon is the Blunderbuss; a heavier weapon that fires a wide spread, effective at close ranges, against small groups of enemies. A bit more cumbersome, but easy to use. For an additional 100BE each, you may pick additional weapons from the ones listed above, spending a maximum of 300BE to collect everything listed. The choice is yours.
Yeah so the world is doomed right. That amount of manifestations of shadows in all of the cities of the world, and they are all miserable places, means a large percentage of the world is dead.
I mean the angels will have to be working overtime to balance that.
Yeah so the world is doomed right. That amount of manifestations of shadows in all of the cities of the world, and they are all miserable places, means a large percentage of the world is dead.
I mean the angels will have to be working overtime to balance that.
They will and they are, but not every area is equally vulnerable. Winterfell itself has protection woven into it from the days of the Builder, and though the enemy be different Winterfell will not fall.
Many other places enjoy similar protections, and the right angel in the right place can have the world. Of all the beings in Creation, they are the least afraid of hard work.
Not to discount those who would adapt to the changing circumstances. The Warlocks of Qarth, protected by ancient walls and ancient Magica, may find dabbling in this new darkness to their taste. And the New Unsullied of Astapor are busy rebuilding their city of absent emotion.
The world is doomed to change, but doom is not death, necessarily.
Quick Edit: There's also a reason for why there was such a a strong force present near Winterfell, but I've resolved to stop talking about the specifics of things I may be able to introduce via actual prose.
