Nerd In the North: 3-21

III-21: A New Dawn

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –​

The hall was filled, but not bustling. 

Knights and retainers sat stiffly, their armor gleaming but their hands gripping goblets a little too tightly. Servants moved quickly, heads down, as if expecting a blow to fall at any moment. And then there were the opportunists… 

Eren had advised on the feast, the smallfolk farmer-turned-commander calling it a way to “let the coals ease off.”

Greg assumed he was talking about calming tensions, but either way, he wasn’t convinced. The Brightfort’s newly gleaming walls might have shed the Dreadfort’s shadow, but inside, the tension was thicker than the smoke curling from the hearths.

Outside, he’d taken a look earlier, and something about it had been… familiar. Not quite in a hey, I know this place way, but in a haven’t I seen this before? way. It didn’t sit right. Nothing about this place did.

Now, though, at the high table, Greg sat flanked by Guts, whose sheer presence seemed to intimidate everyone in the hall, and Eren, whose nervous energy was barely hidden beneath his thin veneer of professionalism. Ash lay sprawled at Greg’s feet, his crimson eyes glowing faintly in the dim light. Every time the dragon-bear shifted, his claws scraped the floor, drawing flinches from the audience.

Greg raised his goblet, and the room fell silent. The clatter of cutlery stopped, replaced by the crackle of fire in the hearths. Every pair of eyes turned toward him, a mix of fear, curiosity, and reluctant respect.

“Welcome,” Greg began, his voice steady, though the words felt awkward in his mouth. Act like you’re in charge, he reminded himself, even though he actually was in charge. “I know this isn’t what any of you expected. Not when you served the Boltons, and probably not when you woke up this morning.”

A few chuckles, uneasy and scattered. Mostly from the ones already angling for favor. The knights and retainers stayed quiet, unreadable.

Greg leaned forward slightly, setting the goblet down with a soft clink. “Like I said a couple days ago, things are different now,” he said, his tone even. His blue eyes swept across the room, meeting gazes where he could, though most looked away quickly. “The Boltons are gone. Their rule—their way of doing things—it’s over. The Brightfort isn’t going to be a place of fear anymore.”

A pause. Silence stretched, cold and brittle.

Greg exhaled through his nose. “You don’t have to like me,” he said bluntly. “Hell, you don’t even have to trust me. But you’re here now, and you know I’m not even half as evil as Lord Bolton. You’re willin to work with me. That means something. You’re part of this. Part of what’s next.”

Somewhere further down the hall, a voice murmured, thick with Northern grit, “Part o’ what, then?”

Another, sharper: “You’re not a Bolton, nor a Stark. What’s next, then?”

Greg’s fingers curled against the armrest. What’s next?

Eren shifted beside him, ready to whisper in his ear, but Greg spoke first. “I’ll tell you,” he said, voice carrying. “What’s next is a North that doesn’t live under the knife. No flayed skins. No pointless cruelty. I’m not here to be another Bolton, and I’m sure as shit not here to kneel to anyone who’d want me to be.” He let that hang, let them sit with it. “You don’t owe me anything. But you do owe yourselves something better than what you had.”

He let his words settle. Somewhere in the back of the hall, a chair scraped softly against the floor. No one stood. Not yet.

“A little softer, my lord,” Eren murmured at his side. “They’re already a bit uneasy… what with the magics and all.”

Greg ignored him, setting his goblet down with a soft thunk. “Look, I’m not Roose Bolton,” he said, his voice firm but not unkind. “I know what happened a few days ago was a little… odd… a little wild, right?”

He let out a long laugh, the kind he’d heard his dad and Uncle Max pull off before—something that wasn’t really all that funny but invited a laugh anyway. A handful of men chuckled, more out of obligation than amusement.

“You lot have spent years keeping your heads down, waiting on orders, hoping you don’t end up the next example. That’s over.” Greg leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms against the table. “Not going to flay you if you step out of line. Not going to make you live in fear every damn day. But I will ask this—do your part. Work with me, and I’ll make sure you and your families are safe, fed, and taken care of.”

At that, a murmur ran through the hall. Some nodded cautiously, others kept their faces blank, the weight of old habits too heavy to shake in one night. One older knight, his graying beard streaked with ash, raised his goblet in a grudging toast. “To the Brightfort, then.”

Greg inclined his head, accepting the gesture. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

Ash chose that moment to rise, stretching his massive frame and letting out a low rumble. The room stilled again, every eye darting to the creature as its claws clicked against the stone. A servant carrying a tray of bread fumbled, the silver clattering to the floor, the sound ricocheting off the high ceilings like a bell. The girl, pale as milk, froze where she stood.

Greg waved a hand. “Ash, easy,” he said, his tone casual but commanding. The dracoursa snorted, giving an almost irritated huff before laying back down, curling around Greg’s chair like an oversized guard dog. The tension in the hall didn’t disappear, but it loosened, just a little. Enough for the servant girl to grab the fallen tray with trembling hands and scurry off.

Guts leaned over, voice low and rough. “Not sure if this is going to make them like you or piss themselves more.”

Greg smirked faintly, glancing at the swordsman. “Probably both.”

As the evening dragged on, he took Eren’s advice and moved among the tables, letting the men see him up close, hear his voice without the weight of a high table between them. He stopped beside a group of retainers, their expressions cautious but not hostile.

“You’ve been here a while,” Greg said, addressing the oldest of the group, a grizzled man with a deep scar running across his jaw. “What do you think? Does the Brightfort feel different?”

The man hesitated, his eyes darting toward his companions before answering. “It’s… warmer,” he admitted gruffly. “Not just the walls. The air’s different. Doesn’t feel like… the cold’s biting ye all the time.”

Greg nodded, his lips quirking into a faint smile. “That’s the idea. Let’s keep it that way.”

The man grunted, something like respect flickering in his gaze before he dipped his head and returned to his meal. Small victories.

Meanwhile, at another table, the smiling suck-ups were already at work. One of them, a younger man with a polished breastplate that had seen more buffing than battle, pushed himself up the moment Greg passed.

“Lord Veder,” the man said, his tone a little too eager. “A fine feast you’ve arranged. Truly, the Brightfort shines brighter under your rule.”

Greg raised an eyebrow. “It’s been a couple days, man,” he said, tone dry as he tilted his head at the guy. “Appreciate the words, but it’s not even a week”

The man blinked, unsure if he’d just been complimented or dismissed. Greg clapped him on the shoulder, his tone light but pointed. “Save the flattery. I’ve got enough people for that.”

He moved on before the man could recover, winding through the hall, his goblet in one hand, exchanging words with a few of the retainers and knights. The suckups nodded at everything he said, eager to please, while the Bolton loyalists kept their voices low and their words clipped.

 Not openly hostile, not yet, but they weren’t interested in losing their heads either.

Something itched at the edge of his awareness.

His instincts had been sharp since the moment he stepped into this world, honed by every fight, every near miss, every time he’d walked into a room and felt eyes watching him like wolves sizing up a wounded deer. 

Right now, they screamed at him.

A flicker of motion caught his eye—Bolton men. 

A few of the garrisoned soldiers he’d spared after they’d knelt to him swearing oaths that he was pretty sure sounded right. 

Their faces remained carefully blank, but their eyes? Their eyes darted, glancing toward others in the hall—knights and retainers whose banners tied them to houses with grudges and ambitions both from what he knew from reading some of Bolton’s library.

There. A group of Bolton knights shared a glance, their expressions too neutral, too measured.

The prickle at the back of his neck tightened.

Greg’s steps slowed, his gaze sweeping the room. Too quiet. Too many hands resting near weapons. Too many bodies shifting, weight poised to move.

His mouth opened, intending to speak, when the first bolt struck his chest from behind

He didn’t have time to react before the second bolt slammed into his shoulder, followed by a third, fourth, fifth. Pain ripped through him, sharp and cold, like fire and ice had met beneath his skin. His goblet hit the floor with a dull clatter, wine spilling in a dark stain across the stone. “Son of a—”

The hall erupted into chaos. Screams, the scrape of chairs, the thud of boots on stone; all of that filled his ears as Greg dropped to one knee.

His breath hitched as blood poured down his doublet, staining it and his trousers both. One bolt had nearly pierced his heart. He could feel the life draining out of him, slow but steady. 

Motherf-! With several hard pained grunts, he ripped each and every bolt out of his body.

One after another after another, each one coming free with a tearing of cloth and flesh both and accompanied by shrieks and shouts from the audience, Ash’s sudden roar silencing them all rather quickly before Greg could do the same. Good boy.

But he wasn’t done.

Clutching his chest, Greg pressed his trembling hand to the wound and began to chant, his voice hoarse but unwavering.

“Holy light, cleanse my soul, mend the broken vessel, and banish the darkness of this mortal wound. Let the sun’s grace pour into me, washing away the pain, the fear, the end.”

Golden light burst from Greg’s palm, spilling across his body in radiant waves as a warm heat pooled through his insides and filled him from the inside out. The remainders of the bolts lodged in his flesh from his rough removals seared with white-hot fire before clattering to the floor, leaving behind nothing at all but holes in his doublet. His wounds knitted themselves shut, the torn skin weaving back together in a shimmer of power that barely hurt at all. The pain sank away, fading into a steady, unnatural warmth, and when he inhaled, the breath came easy, whole.

When Greg stood, the hall did not move.

Every man, every woman, every servant frozen in place. The only sound was the quiet drip of blood onto stone—his own, soaking his ruined clothes, though the skin beneath it was untouched. The golden glow around him flickered, faded, but they kept looking at him like it still hadn’t left.

His gaze swept across them all, calm, considering. Guts stepped forward, one hand on Dragonslayer, but as Greg met his gaze, the black knight paused and nodded.

Then his eyes landed on the man who had led the attack.

The master-at-arms of the Dreadfort. A man of House Dustin.

The same man who had begged on hands and knees to serve Greg with loyalty and honor both, swearing it on his life. Tall, broad-shouldered, a lifetime of fighting written in the stress lines of his face—but now, that face was pale, his fingers locked tight around the crossbow still half-raised.

His eyes met Greg’s, and in them, Greg saw it.

Fear.

Not the fear of a man facing death. That was different. That was resignation, the slow acceptance of the inevitable. This was the fear of a man who had just realized he had no idea what he had been fighting.

Greg didn’t look away. He reached back, pulling his sword free in a single smooth motion, the blade gleaming white, unmarred.

Then, without a word, he threw it.

The air hummed with the force of it. The sword cut through the hall in a perfect straight line, and the Dustin man barely had time to flinch before steel punched through his chest, pinning him to the stone wall behind him with a wet, sickening thunk.

The hall flinched with him. Men jerked back as if the impact had struck them all at once, a ripple of collective, visceral reaction.

Guts moved next, stepping forward before the room could shake itself free of its shock. He didn’t even draw his sword. He didn’t need to. 

His fist drove into the chest of the nearest attacker, a sharp, brutal motion that sent the man flying back with a sickening crunch. Another man rushed him, but Guts turned, pivoted, and his second punch cracked through ribs like dry twigs.

A heartbeat later, the rest of the traitors were on the ground. Six men, groaning, some unconscious, their weapons discarded, their rebellion snuffed out before it had a chance to truly begin.

Greg wiped the blood from his chin, barely sparing them a glance. His voice was calm, almost bored. “Throw them in the dungeon.”

His men hesitated.

Then, as if realizing he wasn’t finished, they paused as Greg took a step forward, his boots echoing in the heavy silence.

“I’ll remove their heads tomorrow,” he added, tone as casual as if he were discussing the weather.

The silence deepened, thick enough to choke on. Faces paled. Hands trembled where they gripped goblets, knives, tankards. The smell of spilled wine and blood mixed in the air, cloying.

Greg kept walking.

He stopped in front of the dead Dustin knight, one hand resting easily on the hilt of his sword, though he didn’t need it. He studied the body, the way the blood seeped slowly from the wound, pooling beneath the man’s boots. Then, with a sharp tug, he wrenched his blade free, the wet sound of steel sliding from flesh breaking whatever trance Ash’s roar had put them in.

A murmur. Shifting feet. Someone whispered a prayer.

Greg turned the blade over in his hands, frowning. He felt it again—that pull, deep inside him, as something more than magic clicked. An understanding, a shift in the way his soul knew his own weapon.

Narrowing his eyes, he focused.

His sword vanished in a flurry of blue light.

The gasps were immediate. Shouts, murmurs, the scrape of chairs against stone as men recoiled.

Greg barely heard them anymore. His eyes were still on his empty hands, fingers curling around nothing. That… would’ve been soooo useful weeks ago.

Brennor stepped forward, his own shock well-hidden beneath a mask of discipline that made Greg wonder where he was pulling it from. His voice, when he spoke as the blond boy finally  looked up, was even, careful. “And what of the Dustin man, m’lord?”

Greg’s gaze flicked to the body slumped lifeless against the wall, a smear of red trailing down the bright white stone. The man’s eyes were still open, vacant, mouth slack in an expression frozen somewhere between pain and acceptance.

Well, fuck. The blond teenager could only sigh. Now the maids gotta do more work.

Shaking his head, Greg turned to Brennor, his tone as even as if he were giving orders for a supply run. “Leave him,” he said. “I’ll deal with the rest tomorrow.”

The soldiers nodded, moving like men suddenly aware of their own mortality. They dragged the stunned attackers across the hall, their armor scraping against the floor and the beaten ones groaning loudly as their broken bones were jostled by the rough hands of Greg’s loyal men. 

No one spoke. The only sounds were the distant crackle of the overly large fireplace and the quiet shuffle of boots against stone.

Greg, still covered in his own blood, adjusted his doublet, brushing down the fabric like he was just fixing a wrinkle, as if he hadn’t just been shot about five times in the fucking chest. Those things honestly didn’t go that deep.

The lord of the Brightfort held his hand out to the side and, within seconds, a servant rushed to him with a fresh one, the watered-down wine inside of it still  tasting like badly-made grape juice as he lifted it to his lips.

He lifted it high, grinning. “What happened to the music?” 

No one answered.

Greg tilted his head, as the silence dragged just a little too long. “Come on. Play, drink, dance,” he said, his grin widening. “Go on, don’t stop ‘cause of me. I’m fine.”

The musicians hesitated. 

He looked over at them specifically this time. “Fine.”

Hands hovered over strings, sticks trembled against drums as blue eyes met each of theirs in turn. Then, one by one, the notes resumed—uneasy at first, faltering, before settling into something resembling a proper tune.

The feast carried on.

But the air had changed. Whispers curled through the hall like smoke, quiet but fast, passing from table to table. Eyes flickered toward Greg and away just as quickly, as if afraid to meet his gaze for too long.

The Bolton loyalists would never trust him. Even the opportunists, the ones who had been so eager to swear their loyalty, were reassessing what exactly they’d aligned themselves with.

How the fuck do I know that anyway?

He held back a sigh as he moved through the hall, goblet in hand, returning every wary glance with a patient smile. Slow steps, deliberate movements. Nothing sudden, nothing aggressive. Let them sit with their thoughts a little longer. Let them wonder.

By the time he reached the high table again, the music had settled into a more natural rhythm, though the tension in the room remained. He lowered himself into his chair with the ease of a man who hadn’t just been nearly assassinated, raising his goblet in an almost lazy toast to the crowd. His smile didn’t waver, despite the visible holes in his bloodstained doublet.

Eren leaned in, his voice low. “That went… better than expected, my lord.”

Greg let out a slow breath, settling into his seat as Ash snuffled contentedly at his feet.

“Eren,” he muttered, taking another sip from his goblet. “Don’t piss me off.”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –​

Swift Justice (100 GP)

10k Words (100 GP)

ROLL: Weapon Materialisation [Genshin Impact] {Destruction} (FREE) – One ability that is not talked about much, yet is worth taking note of, is the ability for those with Visions to store their weapons away in a flash of light. With a simple flick of their wrist, they are able to materialise and dematerialise their chosen weapon away in the blink of an eye. This is not something that all Vision users are proficient in though, a certain red ranger occasionally leaving her bow at home. As a wielder of a Vision yourself, this is an ability that you too share. You can summon and de-summon your ‘main’ weapon away at your leisure. Should you wish, you can change which weapon that you are able to summon.

ROLL: Friend of Fairies [Hyrule Warriors] {Control} (600 GP) – “Fairies, magical nature spirits that favor the light, though fickle and unorganized beings with no shared culture or civilization. The threat of their magic potentially supporting Zelda’s armies was enough to have Cia begin hunting them at the dawn of the war.

In this world, fairies can be roughly divided into two groups of beings. Normal fairies like Link’s speaker Proxi resemble small girls that could fit in the palm of your hand, each with insect wings and a magnificent glow that makes them appear as balls of light to those not close enough. 

The other kind are Great Fairies, resembling giant red headed women with bizarre, revealing clothing and aquiline noses. Normal fairies live in the woods, while Great Fairies reside within fairy fountains and appear when prayed too. 

Now, they and any other nature spirit you may find just loves you. Outside of just not being tricked by the more mischievous ones, you’ll often find them coming to see you and generally being friendly unless you go out of your way to upset them. This is great, since both types have powerful magic, with Great Fairies turning the tides of numerous battles in the war.

Grimoire Points: 150