Nerd In the North 6-16

“What the…”

Blue eyes opened and closed in slow careful blinks as the campfire spit angry orange sparks in the dead of night, wet hood hissing like a dry snake right in front of him. “Wha…” Gregory Veder’s mouth hung open as another blink left him in near-silence, a half-chewed strip of salted beef stalled in the pocket of his cheek. The hell?

He shifted where he sat, leaning back against the massive warmth that was Ash’s fat dragon butt. The pony-sized dragon-bear had just curled into a scaly, fur-matted ball of lethal hibernation after a long day of tearing through the local wildlife, his rumbling exhales shaking through Greg’s spine. Mud sucked at the heels of his boots with each attempt to change position, a living thing that sounded off with a smack every single time he raised his feet. 

But the mud wasn’t the problem. The mud was just the mud, the same mess that had been getting thicker and thicker the closer they got to the Riverlands.

No, the problem right now was the sudden weight that had just slapped itself into his left hand out of absolutely nowhere.

A book…?

It was a book.

Well, technically, two books. 

The second one had immediately slipped off the slick cover of the first, landing square on the mud-spattered crotch of his trousers. Ow. But the one his eyes stayed on was still sitting perfectly balanced in his free hand.

It was thick.

Decently thick, at least.

Not dictionary thick, because that would have been the crazy part.

Bound in leather so dark and textured it looked downright bruised, the book in his hand looked like someone had taken an old scar, stretched it out somehow, and then traced all over the thing with overdone gold decorations that danced under the firelight. “…Cinder Gospel.” Greg read the words on the cover with a frown, the title tickling his brain in a way he wasn’t sure he liked. “Huh.

Across the fire, the ambient noise died an instant death.

Lobb nearly dropped a heavy grey whetstone straight into the muck as his squire’s jaw went completely slack, dark eyes bugging out of a dirt-streaked face. Princess Sansa froze mid-reach for a tin cup of water as her Robb-blue eyes went wide as she stared at Greg’s hand. Even Myrcella, who spent ninety-nine percent of her waking hours in a state of creepy quiet observation, leaned forward slightly with the flat focus of a cat watching a bug. She still had juice dripping down the side of her mouth from the juicy golden apple Greg had plucked from a tree for her a little bit ago.

The big man — unsurprisingly — didn’t even bother to look up from where he sat on a thick stump, oiled rag in hand as he just slid it over the massive flat of the Dragonslayer.

“Lord Veder,” The title tumbled out of Sansa’s mouth in a single trembling thing and too-tight breath, sounding more like an attempt to hold herself together than anything else. “Where… where did that come from?”

Greg worked his jaw a few times more to finish chewing the jerky, swallowing the tough meat with a dry scrape down his throat. Clearing his throat, he shifted the tome in his palm, testing the weight of the thing. No instruction manual, huh.

Not that he was surprised, all that much. These things never came with anything that helpful or convenient. No glowing quest markers or even a handy-dandy pop-up for stat bonuses. Even still, Greg didn’t need any of that to feel the latent hum of it in his fingertips, something that made the tiny hairs on the back of his wrist stand at attention. Another loot drop.

Sixteen months in this frozen, bloody, shit-stained toilet of a continent, and reality occasionally still remembered he was supposed to be living a ‘fun’ little isekai adventure. Everything from the bigger-on-the inside backpack to a bunch of potions — including the one he gave Robb —  and even a bunch of magic books he gave Gwenna; it had all just popped out of nowhere one day at the most random moments. 

It was those random moments that part of him — the modern Brockton Bay teenager part that was getting buried under piles and piles of grimdark bullshit and dead bodies — felt like he really should be way more curious about the random inventory expansions that dropped out of literal nowhere every few weeks or months. But he honestly wasn’t sure how curiosity was supposed to keep his internal organs inside his body. You start questioning the physics of a magical book appearing out of thin air, you eventually have to question the physics of the giant iron-swinging adventure sitting next to you, and even the dragon-bear you were using as a backrest. 

That path led straight to Aneurysm City, Westeros.

Population: You.

“I dunno.” Greg cleaned a bit of stringy beef from his molars with his tongue as he flipped the thick book over to inspect the spine, using his right hand to scoop the second, slightly smaller book off his lap to stack them together. “Just happens sometimes. You do a thing, you get a thing.”

“Things do not s-simply appear, my lord.” Sansa’s voice rose up a good bit higher as the girl did her best to fight off panic with ladylike manners. “It is… it is unnatural.”

“Unnatural?” The snort Greg let out was as ugly and sloppy as the noise could get. “I’ll show you some unnatural.”

Shaking his head, the blond held up his right hand, one finger aimed out at Sansa. “See this baby?” The pale blue dragon scale set into the intricate stone band glinted an icy color in the dark. “Princess, this ring dropped right out of thin air three days ago. I don’t even know what the hell it does. It just sits there being shiny.”

Before Sansa could say anything else, Greg flicked his wrist.

Blinding white light flared into the clearing, bright enough to make Lobb flinch, Daeric bark and the Stark men throw both hands over their faces. Soon enough, it faded just a bit and the snow-white blade of Greg’s trusted blade sat tight in his grip, the light casting long shadows deep into the surrounding trees.

“Hell, this guy was my first.” The glowing blade spun as he gave it a little twirl, just enough to make the metal sing a note that cut through the damp air. “Been with me since the start of this whole mess.”

With a twitch and a thought, Greg dismissed it back to the space in his soul where it made its home without him needing to carry it all of the time. Once again, the clearing plunged back into the dim, orange glow of the campfire.

“It…” The skin around Sansa’s mouth was tight and bloodless, knuckles bone-white where she gripped the thick cloth that made up her fancy skirt. “It is a gift.” She shook her head side to side as she spoke, the motion harsher than her words. “A blessing from the gods. To wield such things… you must honor the gift, Lord Veder. You must pray for the wisdom t-”

“I don’t give a shit about any gods.”

Greg’s voice was as sharp as the white sword had been and twice as flat, cutting straight through anything Sansa had to say. Turned ‘em down once and I’ll do it again. And he meant that, too. Having to do what some creepy nymphs or druids said for power he already had sounded like the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals.

Whether Sansa knew how much he meant it or not, the princess gasped anyway, loud and sharp like Greg had slapped her across the mouth.

Even the Stark men-at-arms, standing guard at the perimeter of the muddy camp, shifted with superstitious dread, calloused hands twitching as if they wanted to say something, but didn’t know what or how or even who to say it too.

“And I don’t give a shit about gifts.” Greg scoffed at the ongoing silence as he rubbed the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “At all.”

Blue eyes ticked over to the black and gold book resting in his palm, the power pooling inside the leather making him feel like he was holding a jar full of angry wasps. But the thought of cracking it open, and actually trying to decipher whatever archaic, cryptic, pseudo-latin bullshit was scribbled inside was giving him a headache just thinking about it. He had people to keep alive. He had an army of fish-men to worry about. He had to keep moving.

“Hell, I don’t even read.”

He extended his arm straight across the smoking fire pit, holding the book out toward the little blonde princess. “Celly. You want this?”

She blinked at him, more still than confused.

This sexist of me? Greg frowned for a second. The way I hand out the loot. It made a weird kind of sense, though, even without thinking about it. Magic weapons for the guys. He tilted his head as Myrcella stared at him, face giving away absolutely zero emotion as she kept blinking. Magic books for the gals.

“Seriously, take it. It’s heavy.”

When the thirteen-year-old still didn’t move, Greg just leaned over and shoved both heavy books directly into her open lap, both of them falling into the folds of her dress..

“You cannot give her sorcery!” Sansa finally broke out of her frozen shock, alarm returning to her voice like he had just set the younger blonde on fire. “She doesn’t know what it is!”

“Neither do I,” Greg shrugged at her, leaning back against Ash’s warm scales. “Might be a picture book for all we know. Maybe it’s got dragons in it.”

“N-no!” Sansa wheezed the word like she was about to actually have the medieval version of a panic attack, chest heaving up and down. “What I mean to say is, you cannot simply h—”

The sound cut her off.

It wasn’t a wolf’s howl. 

Greg knew wolves. Hell, Greg had fought wolves.

They sounded lonely and wild, their calls distant before suddenly getting all too close. This was entirely different; guttural, wet, and deep.

And entirely too close.

The marshland went silent. Even the millions of invisible frogs and insects screaming their hearts out in the dark snapped their mouths shut.

Guts finally stopped polishing his sword.

The giant man stood up, night-black armor shifting and clacking around him as he hoisted the enormous slab of iron onto his right shoulder. “Black dogs ‘gain.” His jaw barely moved, the words scraping out tight and dry as those dark eyes scanned the even darker tree line, trying to track what Greg knew he couldn’t see yet. “Bigger ones ‘is time.”

Black dogs. Greg bit back a sigh. Really getting tired of those things.

Ever since Ramsay, they’d been getting more and more common and more annoying. What is this, like the sixth time?

“Oh…oh no.” Sansa was already scrambling backward in the mud, pulling her knees up tight to her chest.

The Stark men-at-arms were shouting now, panic contagious as steel hissed out of leather scabbards. Lobb joined them, Daeric as well, and two of the other boys; all scrambling to form a ragged half-circle facing the dark, boots sinking deep into the sucking mud as they braced themselves.

Rotting brush at the edge of the clearing snapped, thick branches breaking under immense weight as massive thick-muscled shapes began to separate themselves from the absolute black of the marsh. Each one was enormous and hunched, nearly the size of Ash himself, thin wiry fur matted with swamp water and mud.

Greg sighed, fingers twitching as his right hand dropped to his side. Pull the sword and start carving? That was always Plan A, after all.

But then he looked to his left, Myrcella still sitting by the flickering firepit with those two gold-laced books resting heavy in her lap.

“Hey, Princess.” His voice cut cleanly through the panicked shouting of the guards and the rumbles of hunger pouring from the tree line. “You want to try out one of the books?”

Myrcella stared down at the heavy black leather resting on her knees.

“…How?” 

“I dunno,” Greg shrugged, keeping his eyes locked on the closest set of glowing green eyes in the brush. “Try opening it.”

Letting the second orange-backed book slide down to rest in the mud by her hip, Myrcella’s small, pale fingers unhooked the heavy brass latch of the darker tome with a sharp click. 

She flipped back the thick leather cover and, all at once, the pages came to light.

Sansa gasped again as every single line on the open pages kindled to life with living veins of green-gold fire. Myrcella’s green eyes reflected the molten text, her pupils going bigger and bigger until all that stared down was even more green than there was before.

A massive, scarred beast, jaws wide enough to crush a grown man’s head in a single bite, broke from the cover of the tree line with mud flying from its massive paws.

“Do it, Princess.” Greg raised his right hand, pointing two fingers directly at the beast ready to charge, a Ventrum already primed in his throat if she couldn’t manage whatever he knew she could. “Show me what you got.”

Myrcella didn’t hesitate. 

“Cinder…” Her voice, usually so quiet it barely registered above a whisper, rang out across the clearing with a resonating echo that made everyone pay attention. “Gospel!“

The burning text on the open pages flared even brighter, coming to life as a burst of green-gold flame tore free from the parchment with all the speed of a cannonball. Sixty feet of the clearing was swallowed up in a setting, the lead dog not even having a moment to whine before it took the blast dead center on its massive chest.

The impact shattered the night, a boom of sound followed by heat that would match a summer afternoon in a split-second. Enough to almost boil the damp air, it flooded the clearing with the strench of roasted meat and burning fur, the black dog seemingly nowhere to be seen as grey ash and boiling blood rained down where it just stood. The two black dogs nearest it yelped and ran, their own pelts set aflame on both sides.

The remaining pack went with them.

With a chaotic chorus of terrified, high-pitched, entirely un-monster-like yelps, all the demon-dogs tripped over their own massive paws, slamming into trees and each other as they abandoned the hunt and scrambled back into the suffocating dark of the swamp.

Silence slammed back into the clearing as Myrcella fell backward. 

Sansa scrambled forward, ignoring the muck, and caught the girl by the shoulders. The older princess’s eyes darted frantically from the blood-stained smoking scar in the mud, down to the other girl in her arms, and then up to the boy in the silver armor who had just handed her a weapon of mass destruction.

Myrcella sat up slowly, brushing Sansa’s hands away with a calmness that was unfailingly polite as usual and pulled the still-smoking book out of the mud. She clutched it tightly to her small chest as the terrifying fire in her eyes slowly faded, returning to her usual Lannister green.

“…Cinder Gospel.”

She whispered the name again.

The Stark men-at-arms were frozen in place, swords trembling under white knuckles as they stared at the little girl like she was scarier than the dog she’d just killed. 

Lobb swallowed. “…m-my lord.”

Greg raised an eyebrow. “Yo.”

His squire swallowed again. “…n-n-nothin’, m’lord.”

Behind them all, the earth shifted as Ash lifted his head from the mud, the dragon-bear blinking glowing red eyes as he let out a questioning grumble at the sudden noise, a thick puff of grey smoke leaking lazily from his nostrils.

“You’re good, bud,” Greg said, waving a gauntleted hand behind him. “False alarm. Go back to sleep.”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

They Call You Kyubey – 200 GP

Lead to the creation of two dozen ‘magical girls’.

ROLL: Hot Witch (100) [Ben 10] {Transformation}:

Sorcerers and witches have a sort of exotic charm behind them compared to ordinary humans and you’re no exception. Not only are you quite attractive in terms of appearance, you have a special quality that adds to the sort of ‘mystical’ look befitting your heritage…colorful eyes, hair, perhaps some tattoos or skin without a single blemish. Careful, you might charm someone with that.

Grimoire Points: 600 GP