"Oh great! A human. Please tell me you understand me." I let out once I followed after to where Pyra was flying. She found a man, dressed in black leather and wearing a thick black fur coat. This outfit was a league ahead of the roughly sewn together furs that the cannibals were wearing.
"Aye, I do." The man said warily. Though from the resigned look on his face, he must have known that cooperation was in his best interest. After all, he just saw what I unleashed on those zombies.
"You're not a cannibal, are you? I found some while I was traveling down here." I asked him, gripping my sword's hilt, you know, as a threat.
"NO! NO! I am not." He hastily put up his arms in denial, and by the panic in his voice, I chose to believe him.
"Okay, good, because I killed them. Why are you out here on your own? This land was swarming with the dead. Not exactly what I would call a 'safe' environment for a stroll."
"I–I was sent here to investigate the disappearance of a wildling settlement. I guess I know where they disappeared to."
"This group was the smallest one. The ones further up north were much larger, what was it, Pyra? Twenty thousand zombies?"
"Somewhere around there, yes." Pyra confirmed my guess.
"ARE YOU SAYING THAT THERE ARE TWENTY THOUSAND MORE OF THEM?!" He yelled and started hyperventilating.
"Dude, first of all. Stop yelling, and second of all, no, there were at least a hundred thousand of them… DUDE?! oh damn, he fainted." I watched him fall face-first into the snow.
*smack* *smack* I turned him around and slapped him.
"W-what?! Huh?"
"You fainted."
"Why?" He said with confusion and tried to shake his head to clear his mind.
"I told you there used to be one hundred thousand of those zombies. You freaked out." I said, and pointed behind myself with my thumb. His eyes followed my hand, and something else settled on his face. A realization of some kind.
"I assume you killed them then?" He managed to say.
"Oh yeah, you saw the guy that exploded, right? That was the one who made them, and since I killed him, his magic stopped working. The dead will stay dead from now on."
"I've heard tales of these monsters when I was a child, but I never thought that they would be real."
"Oh? What do you call these things then?"
"White Walkers. Supposedly, the enemies of all living beings. Led by the Night King."
"For enemies of mankind, they were pretty weak. But then again, you have barely any magic in you…" I muttered while I was looking the man over. I guess that in the grand scheme of things, the fight would have evened out.
"So what are you going to do now? I think your mission is finished, no?" I asked curiously. Either way, I was going to follow this guy, because he must have known where civilization was.
"I… I have to report this." He said, looking at us, and at the field of dead bodies.
"To whom? The king?"
"What, no. To the Lord Commander."
"Oh, okay. Sounds important. We're following you." I said, pointing to us.
"I don't have a choice, do I?"
"No."
—
We spent the last day traveling on foot with this guy. His name was Benjen Stark, and he was a ranger from something called the Night's Watch. A group of men, forced to protect the seven kingdoms from threats beyond the wall.
"Wow. So that's the wall?" I said with awe, as I beheld the gargantuan structure made out of pure ice. It must have been at least five hundred feet high, and apparently it stretched from one side of the continent to the other.
"Yeah… I can see why they were not overrun by the zombies already. Just it alone is a great defense." Pyra said.
Benjen wasn't really speaking to us since yesterday night. We found a weird-looking tree with a face on it, and he prayed to it. Immediately after that, his behaviour shifted. And when he did speak, he sounded almost deferential. I didn't like it, nor did Pyra for that matter.
"My ladies, we will be at Castle Black in an hour. Do forgive us for the meager accommodations you will no doubt receive." He said with a strained smile. See? He's being fucking wierd.
"Don't worry about that. We will not be staying."
"... Where are you headed then?" He asked with fear.
"Ugh… somewhere where strange trees don't scare away people from us." I said bitterly. I saw him open his mouth, and a flash of denial crossed his face.
"Please, save your words. You prayed to that tree, and now you're scared of us. That's a fact."
"I-I am sorry. That wasn't my intention. I was trying to show the appropriate amount of respect for beings such as you two." He said with hesitation, as if I would go berserk or something.
"Listen, buddy. I don't care what your tree god told you. I didn't ask for it, so drop it."
"I'm afraid that I cannot do that, but you are right, the Old Gods, they—they spoke to me last night. They put things in perspective, and I cannot unsee that. Now that I know, you terrify me."
"Yeah, well, I'm gonna find one of those trees, and give them a piece of my mind." I said with a scowl.
"See? It's things like this. You speak so casually about talking to Gods." He told me, and left me behind with Pyra, who listened to the whole conversation with an unreadable expression.
"This sucks. I'm not terrifying. Am I?"
"No, you're not, but I think that these gods are scared of you for some reason. Hence their reaction."
"But why? That's what I don't get."
"It's not that hard to figure out. You killing that Night King so effortlessly must have been a bigger deal than we thought."
"What? You really think that these gods are scared of me because I killed some second-rate necromancer?" I said with disbelief.
"That's the only thing that makes any sort of sense."
"Let's hope that other gods are more rational, then." I sighed.
"Hmm~ How about we ditch the tree worshipper and do our own thing? I can see that this is getting to you." Pyra asked and took hold of my hand, squeezing it lightly. She was right, it was kinda getting to me.
"Yes. Let's find a big city and start having actual fun. Fuck the trees." I hopped on my broom and flew high up into the air.
"Fuck the trees." Pyra followed right after me.
The lands south of the wall were pretty barren for miles on end. We only saw one keep, or maybe it was a guard post, I don't know, and that one was incredibly small. But there we found a road and we decided to follow it. Roads do all lead somewhere, right?
As we were flying above it, we encountered a giant sea of green. This must have been the biggest forest I have ever seen. It stretched as far as my eyes could see and beyond. But in the middle of it was a city. A big one at that.
"I think this one is good enough, no?" I asked Pyra, who was watching it with me.
"Oh, definitely. I mean, look at this! They have greenhouses!" She was pointing at the steaming structures with excitement.
"They look kind of out of place, don't they?"
"A little bit, but then again, this is not Earth."
"No, it is not. Earth didn't have castles as huge as this one." I was utterly impressed by the sheer scale of it.
"I guess they don't have hotels, do they?" I asked Pyra jokingly.
"pft. No, but maybe we can find an inn without a bedbug infestation." She said with a snort.
"Not bloody likely…" I muttered as we walked through the town surrounding the castle and saw the general level of hygiene. While it didn't smell as bad as I imagined a medieval town would, it still wasn't anything pleasant. I'd take the smell of car exhaust over human shit any day of the week.
"We should check places closer to the castle wall." Pyra said after we walked through the hopefully only muddy streets.
"Wait, I forgot to take any money. Let's dip into an alley, and I'll try to summon some local currency. Somebody must have dropped something." I suddenly realized our problem and tried to locate an alley suitable for our purpose.
"This one should do… Accio gold coins." I immediately cast the spell after checking if the alleyway was empty, and to my pleasant surprise, several gold coins covered in mud flew into my hand.
"Ew– Tergeo." I quickly cast the wiping spell and started counting.
"Ten gold coins. That should be enough, right?" I asked, while examining them. They all had a face on them, probably the king, and a dragon on the other side.
"We'll know once we try to buy a room." Pyra shrugged. It was not like we really needed to stay here. We just wanted to as a part of the adventure.
We walked for a bit and found a nice-looking establishment. It was a brick building nestled close to the castle wall, a few meters from the gate leading inside the castle proper.
"Good evening, how much for a night?" I asked the man behind the bar. He looked like he was the one in charge of that stuff, mostly because there were unused keys behind him.
"Four Stags a night." He replied lazily without even looking at us. How much was one dragon worth? Should be at least twenty, right?
"We will stay for two weeks. Keep the change." I said and slid him one gold coin, and as soon as the man saw it, his eyes widened a bit, he quickly looked around, and seeing nobody paying him any attention, he pocketed it with practiced speed.
"Thank you, my Lady, for gracing this humble establishment. If you want, I will have an additional bed placed in your room. I only ask that you wait for a little while." He said, looking between us and asking a silent question.
"No need for that, my good sir. One bed will suffice." Pyra said pleasantly, and the barkeep nodded in understanding.
"Very well, Marla! Come here, girl." He shouted over his shoulder into what I assumed was the kitchen, and a young girl barely in her teenage years sprinted out.
"Marla, show these ladies into their room." He told her and gave her one of the better-looking keys that hung on the wall.
"If you need anything at any time, call on Marla." He said with a nod toward the little girl.
"This way, ladies, follow me." The girl said with a barely audible voice and went up the stairs. She led us to the topmost floor, where only three sets of doors stood, and opened one of them for us.
"Enjoy your stay."
"Thanks, little one, we will." I replied with a smile, and the girl left us to our devices.
I then used every single cleaning spell I knew on the room, I really didn't want to get sick. Who knew what kind of diseases this world had?
"What do you want to do tomorrow, Pyra?" I asked her once we were lying in bed.
"We should explore the town more, and I think it would be a good idea to sell some of the trinkets we have in our treasury. You know, to build up our image."
"Oho? Do you want to play merchants? I'm down." I rolled over to my stomach to look at Pyra while she spoke.
"Emmy… Don't call it playing. We will be working as merchants. It's a good cover." She pouted at the words I used, and I just giggled.
"But what do we need a cover for? We can just be the weird, mysterious merchants, and I can use magic to be even more mysterious. You know, like disappearing right after we make a trade, or pulling items out of impossibly small pockets. Things like that."
"Don't you want to do it normally?"
"Of course not. Love, can you imagine me setting up a stall?" I chuckled.
"Hah~ No. But this will bring all kinds of attention to us. I hope you're ready for that."
"Please… What's the worst that could happen? They try and arrest us? We get targeted by some underground elements? If it comes down to it, we'll just fly away." I reassured her and kissed her temple.
"Hmm~ I just want to make sure we have fun, I imagine that being on the run would get old fast." She said and leaned into me.
"Don't worry your pretty little head with that. As long as we're together, we will have fun."