Author Note
I'm still writing the last story in this series it's just that I went to plan ahead and then the CYOA updated, so I decided to start typing up the chapters because I felt a strong eagerness to do so and if I'm not having fun writing these stories then I might as well not bother.
So as to explain why there is a glitch, the reason behind the portals that are linking Westeros to Middle Earth, is that the CYOA updated but not until after this story starts so the setup starts using version 1 rules and then after the update, it starts to using version two rules. The Harry Potter story started with version 0.4, which is why the budget is only 50 points. I knew this a little confusing so just try to bare with me and enjoy the story.
Thanks to James Pratt for beta reading this chapter for me. Once he was done I made some more changes and this is the end result.
Gforce1000's Rule 34 Economy CYOA V 2.0
World 1 - Harry Potter
Budget - 50 points
Harem:
Raven - 20 points
Perks:
Binding Contracts - 20 points
Easy Insertion - 5 points
Optimisation - 5 points
Quest: Save The Day (Defeat The Death Eaters) +15 points
World 2 - Game of Thrones.
Setup Location Westeros = 100 points
15 points from the last level
Budget = 115
Companions:
Raven (Rachel Roth)
Hermione Granger
Luna Lovegood
- 20 points for Ciri
- 15 for Triss Merigold
= 80 points
Perks
- 15 for Slick Ride
65 points
- 5 for Fate Breaker
60 points
- 10 for Purity of Body
50 points
- 10 for Purity of Mind
40 points
- 15 for Craftsman
25 points
- 20 for Martial Brilliance
5 points
Quest: Save The Day + 15
20 + Glitch
Complication Convergence +25
= 45 Points
- 5 for Slave Collars.
= 40 points.
World 2 - Game of Thrones
The Lands of Always Winter. Westeros.
Far to the north far from where any humans lived. The last of the Children of the Forest were to be found, never a populous people many of them had fallen with the introduction of humans to this part of the world. Yet even after losing so many of their numbers over the years, they had still managed to endure over the centuries, even with all of the losses to there people. But they knew that their people had reached they're twilight. There time was coming to an end. This didn't bother them much. Everything has it's time, and there's was coming to an end. It was part of nature, no what bothered them was that they'd grown so weak that their magic could no longer restrain their most deadly creations.
Thousands of years after the pact with the First Men was made, and before the coming of the Andals, the Children of the Forest had helped humanity defeat the White Walkers, those not slain in that great war had been driven north and sealed up in their icy citadel. Even back then the Children had known that the Walkers would one day break free of their imprisonment and seek to do what they'd been made to do. Wage war upon mankind until nothing was left.
To prevent this, the Children worked with both the Giants and the First Men to construct The Wall. The Children wove their magic's into The Wall as the Giants provided their great strength to the labour and the humans made use of their many tools. The collective effect of the three races created something unique in the history of the world. While The Wall stood the Walkers and their undead warriors would be unable to attack the rest of Westeros, keeping those that lived south of The Wall safe.
To help ensure that The Wall would endure the Night's Watch was created. The First Men were supposed to have remained on the other side so that the White Walkers wouldn't have people to kill and animate as wights, while their power would be held back by The Wall. The Children even provided the Night's Watch with dragon glass daggers and arrowheads for when the Walkers threatened their lands once again.
Over the centuries things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for three thousand years, the walkers passed from recorded history becoming nothing more than a story told to frighten small children. Forgetting why the wall even existed those seeking new lives ventured to the other side of The Wall, not understanding what they were doing. Perhaps it wouldn't have mattered if the Children had remained strong, but then the Andals had come with swords of steel and axes, they cut down the Weirwoods and slaughtered all The Children they could find, forcing the last to flee.
Through all of this, they were not without hope. A plan was in motion and had been for some time despite only a few knowing it. The Children of the Forest knew that they were doomed. However, the rest of the world need not be condemned along with them.
Then all of a sudden things had changed. The Greenseer saw something that was unexpected, new players in the game, new notes in the song of ice and fire. The magic of The Children, which had been weakening for so long, would become stronger as the actions of these new players weakened the enemy. The future had been changed by these outsiders and now very little was certain.
"I have seen something, a swirling mass of energy that will bring a new threat to these lands. A burning eye, a ship that flies in the sky, the return of dragons, and monsters in the shape of men."
Bloodraven shook from the power of the vision he had just been given, trying to understand what he had seen. The Child of the Forest who called herself Leaf when she needed to converse with humans pondered all of this, but not for long as one of her fellow Children let her know that two human women had appeared nearby and the dead were moving against them. This must have something to do with the sudden changes the Greenseer had seen. Leaf left the cave and headed outside, with her fellow Children of the Forest beside her as she went to find out more about what was going on.
The North. Westeros.
Raven looked around and before long realised that she was all alone, this wasn't right as she should have been with the rest of the group and the new members that she'd seen her master select from the list of potential companions. While Raven had no desire to share her master more than she had to, she'd agreed that it would be wise to have consorts, those who were more use to this world's level of technology and social structures. Also, adding another spell caster to the mix, one who had their own way of using magic, would give her someone new to learn from.
Only that hadn't happened, she was in the right place, she knew that because her master's steampunk airship was floating above her, and as planned they were somewhere in the northern kingdom of Westeros, judging by the light snow falling around her. However, she was the only one of the consorts who seemed to be in the right place, which meant something had gone terribly wrong.
This was the place James had been selected as their starting location during the setup since they'd wanted to begin this part of the CYOA somewhere out of the way, where no one would notice their arrival. These lands, which were part of the Seven Kingdoms, was sparsely populated, so there was little chance of running into anyone upon arrival. He'd mentioned it when writing about how he and his group would fit into this world.
It didn't really make sense for a world with this level of technology to have a group of people flying around in a steampunk airship, but this did not worry Raven as she'd seen the CYOA alter reality so as to make things that were added into a world to somehow make sense to everyone who needed to be convinced. Thus, the people of this world should find some way to rationalise the existence of the airship.
Raven had more significant issues on her mind, such as where everyone else in her group had gotten too. James, her beloved master, as well as Luna and Hermione should be somewhat prepared to deal with this world as James had explained the TV show to them as Raven had done her best to give the group useful details from the books she'd read. This had led to Raven and James comparing the two, and the former Teen Titan still felt angry about how the TV show had finished. But again that was something for her to dwell on another time.
Using her powers, Raven flew up to the airship, as she did the spell-caster felt that there was something was a little wrong with the magic of this world. She didn't quite have words for what she was feeling, and it didn't interfere with her ability to use her soul-self, but the magic felt stagnant and perhaps weaker than the world she had just come from, that was the only way she could describe it. Not unexpected given what she knew of this world. Until the return of the dragons, the power of all magic-users would be more limited unless the arrival of James and his consorts had the same effect.
As for the vessel it looked as if someone had taken two wooden sailing ships, gotten rid of the masts, glued their decks together, placed portholes on the hull and then added chimneys as well as some sort of steam engine on top of the vessel along with a platform for people to stand on. Raven could also see that she assumed to parts of the airship where cannons could be pointed out. Also, there was a strange-looking fan, a propeller of some kind, on the back of the airship that must propel the vessel through the water when the airship was on the surface of the seas or under them.
Landing on the deck of the airship, the former daughter of the demon Trigon could see a way inside the vessel. Thanks to Martial Brilliance perk that her master had shared with his consorts she should be able to learn how to fly the airship in just a few hours, but she didn't want to start learning just yet. Instead, she considered her options and fished out from one of her many bags of holding from her belt, what looked to be a few compact mirrors, the kind girls at Hogwarts had used to check their make-up. She carefully laid the small mirrors out on high surface she found within what she could only guess was the airship's bridge.
"Luna, James, Hermione!" she called out.
Via a magical spell, the mirrors were linked, each was one half of a pair that another member of the group carried, and they each carried one part of a set so all members of the group could call each other whenever they wished to. Hermione, ever the smart one, must have been thinking along the same lines as she already had her mirror in hand.
"Rachel!"
She shouted, using the name Raven used in public.
"Where are you?" asked the bookworm.
Raven quickly explained that she was exactly where she was supposed to be and that everyone else was lost.
"Something has clearly gone wrong."
Frowning, Hermione thought about what could have happened to send her so far away from the starting point.
"I'm in a city, it smells really bad and everyone here is giving me funny looks."
Raven wondered if Hermione had somehow ended up in Kings Landing.
"I'm north of you so use the Four Points Spell to fly north. If you reach The Wall, which you can't miss, then you've gone too far, but you should be able to narrow down my location long before that" the dark-haired witch advised. "It's hard to miss the giant airship floating in the sky."
Hermione grumbled something about having to fly. Before asking a question.
"Shouldn't we be looking for James?"
Their master had access to the same resources as they did so he should be able to make his way to the airship.
"I think it's best for us to meet here," said Raven "If we have to go looking for him then first we should all meet at the airship. It's secure and easy to see since it's flying around, meaning he'll likely see us before we see him and we know he's alive because the CYOA is still going. I'm sure we'd know if our contracts were no longer binding us to him. Plus I can keep an eye on his mirror, hopefully, he'll contact us soon and let us know where he is."
Hermione realised that this made sense.
"I'll head north, have you had any word from Luna?"
One of the mirrors Raven had laid out started to vibrate softly. Looking over, she saw that it had Luna's mark on it.
"Yes her mirror is trying to contact me now, get a move on, contact me in a few hours to let me know how you are doing."
Before Hermione cut the connection, Raven could that she looked around, trying to find somewhere out of the way she could get on her broom without causing a scene.
Reaching over Raven clipped open the young seer's mirror. Straight away, she could see something was wrong. Luna seemed unusually focused as she looked at Raven. Whatever was bothering the young seer must be serious indeed to put that look on her face. Perhaps it had to do with her lack of foresight; she'd not foreseen this disaster. This must be odd for her because it was rare for Luna to seem concerned about anything, although to be fair, it's hard to surprise someone who keeps seeing the future. Putting aside what was disturbing the young seer, she quickly explained that they had all seemed to have landed in random points all over Westeros.
"Where are you?"
Raven asked. Like Hermione, the other witch had ended up in a city, one that was thankfully here in Westeros and to Raven, it sounded as if she was in Old Town judging by the famous landmark the Seer was able to describe. Raven's instructions were no different. Luna was to fly northwards on her broom, stopping only to use her wand to try to narrow down a direction to fly in. Brooms could be pretty fast, but it could be many hours before they found there way here, perhaps even days depending on how fast they flew.
As for Raven, she had no means of speeding up their journey or finding James as even a Patronus message might not be able to travel far enough if there was a lot of distance between them and with Seven Kingdoms to be in, he could be very far away indeed. Hoping that Luna might get a vision, which could guide them to him once she got here so all Raven could do for now at least, was to wait, and to hope that he would call her on his mirror.
North of the Wall. Westeros.
Bitter cold slammed into my body as I looked about in surprise. This wasn't right, I was supposed to be starting this adventure on board my steampunk airship that could also serve as more typical kind of ship or a submarine if needs be. I'd gone to a lot of trouble, going into a lot of detail to describe the type of airship I wanted even going so far as to make it part of this world's history. Adding the legend of a powerful lord known as The Captain who travelled far and wide in his amazing flying machine. People were unlikely to accept it as real until they actually saw the airship and then they should accept it as just another oddity of the word, much like how The Wall didn't make any sense just as a way to keep out a bunch of Wildings.
While on the subject of Wildings, or the Free Folk as they called themselves, there were several of them right in front of me, with there mouths hanging open. As I looked about, I noted absently that one of them seemed to have gotten over her shock and had knocked an arrow with impressive speed while her friends just stood about with their mouths hanging open. The rather angry-looking redhead who had the arrow knocked looked ready to fly it right at me if I made a wrong move. Which made sense as from their perspective, it must look as I'd appeared from nowhere, and this was something that would spook the locals given that the mere idea of teleportation shouldn't exist for them.
Upon taking a closer look at the archer I felt a mild sense of surprise as I recognised that it was Ygritte, a woman I knew to be one of the Free Folk who lived north of the Wall, a hint about where I was even if the endless amounts of ice and snow hadn't clued me in. She was a member of Mance Rayder's army and fated to be Jon Snow's future lover. The latter part didn't matter right now, and they weren't much of a threat to me, since I had several layers of protection that would keep me safe from harm.
What concerned me much more than the presence of the Wildlings was that I couldn't see any of my consorts. Raven, Luna, and Hermione, all of whom had been with me mere moments ago, as I'd finished setting up this level of the CYOA were not here. Nor could I see Ciri, the lady of space and time, or the Mage Triss Merigold, both of which I'd purchased as companions because of my familiarity with the Witcher games and because I figured they'd both be well suited to helping me navigate a dangerous medieval world.
If not for the mental exercises that Raven had drilled into my head, I might have panicked at this point. But before the Free Folk around me, could try to do anything. Some of the Night King's Wights appeared from the snow. I'd prepared to face wights well in advanced of coming to this world, and while I'd not imagined I'd be dealing with them as soon as I arrived, I'd not ruled out meeting them early on as the Night King might have some means of seeing the future, as his powers weren't fully understood.
So as the Free Folk began to panic or fight as best they could, I was ready with some spells. I considered unleashing Fiendfyre and then trying to teleport somewhere far from here, only for me to ditch that plan as I had nowhere to go, at least nowhere I could reach using my limited teleporting abilities. Besides Fiendfyre had always been a 'break glass in case of an emergency deal' and this wasn't as big on an emergency as might seem, so I stuck to less hazardous fire spells.
The wights were easy enough to spot, as they came running out of the snow. The bitter cold threatened to overwhelm the warming charms on my clothes. I'd made sure I had several layers of protective charms woven into my clothing that should provide me with pretty good protection from harm. Also to keep me safe I was taking advantage of my powers to pop up unexpectedly behind the wights and set them on fire before vanishing again before they could get a bead on me. Being able to teleport around when no one else could was unfair, not that I had any hesitation to use all my gifts to take out has many wights as quickly as possible.
"Incendio!" I yelled, spraying a cone of fire from my wand as I set several wights on fire.
Frowning slightly at the spells feel and the fact that the fire spell didn't seem to be as strong as it should be. Wondering if perhaps it was due to the extreme cold being generated the White Walkers or, perhaps something due to this dimension's nature I didn't know, and there was no time for me to find out as I had to keep fighting. There were too many wights, and If I kept still for more than a few moments, entire gangs of them would come charging at me. Thankfully, it didn't take much fire to put one of the wights down, and I managed to cut down whole swaths of them. But as many as I cut down more just kept coming.
After several minutes of jumping about and setting the wights on fire, I noted that only the redhead was still standing and since I might need a local guide it made sense to keep her alive. So I jumped over to the archer and took up position beside her, a quick nod from her before she let loose one of her last arrows straight through a wights eye, which put the wight down for a moment from the sheer force of her arrow. But only a moment later it got right back up again and screamed at her with the arrow still sticking out of the undead thing's head. A quick flick of my wand sent a small ball of fire at the wight making it screams even louder as the fire quickly spread to consume it's body before it collapsed.
Looking around, I could see we were on the verge of being overwhelmed from all directions. Digging deep within myself, I swirled my wand over my head intoning in a deep voice that cut through the screaming of the wights.
"Igneus Orbem!"
A massive circle of fire sprang into being around us both, blocking our view of the attackers. I heard Ygritte shout an oath in surprise at my back, due to all the heat and flames that suddenly surrounded us. Concentrating and feeding more of my magic into the flames, the circle expanded at a rapid rate top fast for any of the wights to run away from. I could see I had taken out dozens of wights in one go from all the charred remains that had been left behind. Once the circle reached out about twenty feet from me, I let go of the magic and the flames petered out from a roaring inferno ten feet high, to normal flames which started to pitier out almost straight away. I noted that the wights had just stopped at the edge of the dying flames and not making any move to come any closer. Their glowing blue eyes sending a shiver down my spine as they stared at us with their unblinking gazes. Looking around I could feel a powerful presence moving towards us through the remaining wights.
The wights, those I hadn't burned, all backed off as a single White Walker strode towards us. Part of the circle died as soon as the White Walker made contact with the fire. Now that it was close I could see that the creature wore some sort of light blue armour made of a material I knew nothing about and in a style I found to be alien. The Walker carried it's iconic four-foot-long ice spear with some sort of metal on the handle, bronze most likely. It calmly walked towards me, as if it had all the time in the world to kill me.
"Incendio!" I yelled again.
The magical flame quickly sped from my wand towards the White Walker. The flame guttered and died a few feet before it could reach it, and I noticed that the temperature seemed to drop rapidly. Seemingly unbothered by the fire I brought forth I figured that it must have some sort of barrier of cold around itself.
"Stupefy!"
The red bolt of power struck The White Walker, and it staggered back a step but otherwise was unhurt. Several other spells quickly followed, which should have done something. I found they had little effect on the White Walker apart for holding it back for a few moments. The blue-eyed monster was only getting slowed down. My spells were not at full power I had to change my tactics.
"Okay let's try something less direct," I muttered.
Ygritte shot an arrow at the Walker, which shattered on impacted with its armour, with no concern The White Walker kept walking towards us. Getting a bit worried, I threw the full force of my magic into the disarming charm. This worked as it sent the ice spear flying out its hand. Looking at me with slight surprise on its face. This was when the wights that had been holding back all screamed and began to charge as the last of my magical fire died out, so I had no choice other than to turn to the dark arts or try exhaust myself by trying to keeping teleporting somewhere within my line of sight. I didn't think I'd get away doing that so I summoned as much rage and hatred as possible, which wasn't that hard considering someone was trying to kill me, and I used darkest of magic I knew, The Killing Curse.
"Avada Kadava!" I shouted.
The green coloured spell travelled through the air and upon impacting with the Walker it caused the inhuman creature to explode into ice. The wights that had been running towards Ygritte and me simply dropped to the ground, like puppets who'd had their strings cut. I'd wondered if that would work as dementors are immune to the Killing Curse because they aren't really alive, as it turned out the White Walkers are alive in some sense and therefore vulnerable to The Killing Curse. Thinking if the curse would work on the Night King, I somehow doubted it would be so easy even if I could get close enough to him to use it.
"You killed one of them," Ygritte said with a look of awe on her face.
Taking a deep breath and trying not to think about the slimy feeling, that spell always left me with, I had for a moment forgotten that Ygritte was still alive despite all her friends getting slaughtered. Guess her character had some plot armour, not that would help her for long if things carried on the way they did in the show.
"Yes, I did," I replied.
By now I was going through my options. I could try to apparate myself to Castle Black which might not be too far, then either stun or sneak by anyone who might stop me from travelling further south, but I had no idea how far the castle was from here as all I could see in every direction was snow and the horizon. I could call for help from my witches using the magic mirrors only there wasn't much anyone could do to help me unless they were very close by. No, I needed to save myself and then try to contact the others as this obviously wasn't a safe neighbourhood. Then I could make a plan to get myself south.
Ygritte was spending some time looking around at all the chard body's and trying to get to grips with the fact that one of the unstoppable enemies of her people had been stopped. She knew about magic, of course, her people had wargs who could control animals with their minds but she had never seen anything like this.
"You need to come with me to see Mance," Ygritte insisted.
No doubt the King Beyond The Wall would be very interested in someone who could kill White Walkers, alas for the Night's Watch traitor, for the time being, I had no need or desire to associate with a bunch of savages who were barely past the stone age in terms of advancement.
"I'm not going anywhere with you. I have to find my friends," I told the Free Folk woman.
She didn't take kindly to my objection and aimed an arrow at me at my leg and she let loose with an impressive speed I'll give her that. The arrow bounced off my shield charm much to her shock. Before she could once again try to foolishly hurt the person who had just saved her life I summoned up some ropes and bound her. Understandably she was not happy about this, as the ropes quickly wound around her body and tied her uptight tipping her over into the snow, then cursing me she struggled with the ropes as she tried to wriggle free.
Looking at my wand I whispered the four-point spell my wand quickly pointed me in the right direction. I asked the spell to point me towards shelter. The spell only gave direction, it gave no hint of distance, but it was enough to get me moving, and I could teleport myself by my line of sight as long as I could see where I was going, so I would find shelter before my warming charms failed me.
After taking only a few steps away from the struggling woman she got my attention.
"You can't leave me, you've caught me. I'm yours now!" Ygritte shouted.
If I remembered correctly for a Free Folk woman getting nabbed by a big, strong man who can overpower her is supposed to be proof that he will father strong healthy children. I'd just killed a White Walker and showing that I had magical powers, that must be rather impressive to her. My memories of the show reminded me that Ygritte was stolen by Jon Snow, making him her husband in some sense. Of course, he didn't see it that way, but culturally the act of taking her hostage when the others of the Nights Watch had just wanted to kill her, well she saw it as him taking her for himself. Of course, if she kills him and escapes than all she'd done was prove that he wasn't good enough for her. This idea of abducting women to marry them is not something out of fantasy. The Mongols, for example, did this a very long time ago.
"I have more than enough women. All of them were far less likely to stab me in the back," I said to the redhead.
"I'll be good to you, I swear you can fuck me and I'll show you how to live in these parts. Can your other women do that?"
This was tempting as if nothing else I could be stuck north of The Wall for a while, but I decided against it as Wildlings couldn't be trusted. Besides she was hardly the submissive type, then again she'd never met anyone who could kill the White Walkers, she wasn't stupid even if she had been foolish enough to attack me. Overall it didn't seem worth it.
"The ropes will fade soon enough," I promised.
I began to walk away only to realise that Ygritte could be useful to me, and I had a contract she could sign. If she were mine now since I had caught her, she'd sign it. If she wanted to capture me and drag me off to Mance the contract shouldn't work since it needed consent. With that in mind, I turned around and vanished the ropes with a wave of my wand. Ygritte quickly stood back up. I noted that she didn't reach for her bow, but I knew she probably had several knives on her person. Reaching into one of my pouches I brought out one of the spare contracts that Raven had made for me.
"Read, then sign this and you can be one of my women," I promised.
She looked at the page for less than a second before letting out a small huff of annoyance.
"Do I look like someone who can read?" she said.
I'd not considered that. How does someone who can't read write sign a magically binding contract that requires you to understand the contract? This was something to figure out later, for now, we needed shelter. I could feel that it was getting darker and even colder. I figured that meant either a blizzard was coming or more White Walkers. I didn't wish to find out which. Making a snap decision I whipped my wand up and stunned Ygritte before she realised what was happening.
Lands of Always Winter. Westeros.
This was not what Ciri had expected when she and Triss signed up for a new life. Both of them had reasons for fleeing their old lives, hence why they'd signed a binding contract that gave them the chance to start over in a new world. Ciri wanted to escape her responsibility, to avoid become Empress. She wanted adventure, travel and fight monsters without worrying about what was left of The Wild Hunt coming after her after she'd played such a significant role in their downfall. At least she was already getting to do some Witcher work, not that this pleased her, as she'd not been prepared to start so soon.
Triss just wanted a fresh start in a place that was free of mages getting burned at the stake. Joining a harem wouldn't have been the first choice for either of these women and while seeing more than one world in a lifetime was nothing new to Ciri for Triss it was worth the price because it included learning a whole new system of magic from the other witches that were in the harem. Along with entire new worlds to explore she couldn't wait. Getting away from her world had also become tempting when Geralt left with Yennfer to settle down somewhere. Not that this was on Triss's mind right as she dodged around some sort of undead that had just lunged for her blasting it with a firebolt.
They should be meeting the man they'd be companions with. Along with some other women, a chance to make some new friends only something had gone wrong. Ciri and Triss were together, but in the wrong place and they'd come under attack. Thankfully while Ciri couldn't take them out of this world, because of the CYOA, she'd not lost her ability to disappear and reappear in the time it takes to blink, so she was able to hack and slash the undead to pieces before any of them even knew she was there.
Only something was wrong Ciri was slowing down, and Triss's spells seemed to be getting weaker. The Mage then saw a strange figure who was watching them fight. Merigold wondered if the figure nearby had something to do with the increasing cold. It seemed to be affecting her fire spells. The Lady of Space and Time also noticed the strange white humanoid that stood back and seemed to be directing the undead somehow.
When some others arrived at the battle, child-sized figures who attacked the undead with some sort of bombs providing a distraction Ciri took the chance. She appeared directly before the humanoid figure and lashed out with Zireael, her sword, which the leader of the undead met with his own ice blade. Both blades screamed has enchanted metal met enchanted ice. The White Walker showing mild surprise when the two swords stopped each other without shattering the young woman's blade.
This expression of surprise didn't last for very long as Ciri vanished only to reappear a heartbeat later behind the enemy's commander. Ciri drove her Witcher's sword, which had a 38½ inch blade, a silver-plated siderite steel core, as well as glyphs and runes throughout the length of the blade, and on the hilt, right into her enemy's back causing him to explode into fragments of ice. As soon as that happened, the few undead that had still been active dropped the ground, the power that had been animating them now had gone. Walking back over to Triss they both kept a wary eye on the child-sized creatures, that had come to help them. One of them separated from the small group waving for them to follow.
"Come with us, more are coming," advised one of the child-sized figures, in a softly lilting voice.
Not having much in the way of choices, because if nothing else the cold would kill them before long as neither were prepared for this type of weather. Quickly marching around a small hill following the small group of creatures, both women gasped at the sight of the massive tree with blood-red leaves in the middle of this frozen wasteland. While the two women paused for a moment to admire the view, screams could be heard from around the hill. Shaking themselves off they quickly followed the remaining small humanoid inside a cave has they worked there way inwards they had to duck all of the roots in the tiny passageway. Crouching down the pair made there way deeper into the heart of the tree. After about half an hours walking they came to a rather large room. Glowing moss brought just enough light to the small cavern so that they could see while still leaving the room mostly in darkness. Small bones crunched under there feet as they were led Inside. In the middle of the room, they found themselves face to face with an ancient man who seemed to have the roots of the tree growing into him. Both young women used to stranger sights introduced themselves to the strange man.
"Greetings, I believe that we will be able to help each other. Don't worry the magic of this place will keep the others out."
Said the old man who looked as if he'd become part of the root system of the tree this cave was under. If there were any more undead out there, they didn't follow them inside, so Triss and Ciri decided to sit down and rest as they started listening to what the old man had to say. They didn't think that anyone here wanted to harm them. Otherwise, they would have just left the two newcomers to this world to be killed by the undead still outside.
"How can you help us?" enquired Triss Merigold.
The Three-Eyed Raven as he called himself in this lifetime. Began to explain the situation, turned out to be an ancient and immensely powerful greenseer could perceive the past, present and future through visions. Though he lacked the ability to interact with those he saw in his visions, but he could learn much. Because of this power, he knew exactly where Ciri and Triss needed to go. He offered to share his knowledge, and with Ciri's ability to teleport, they'd be able to quickly regroup with the others in the group.
"I desire an alliance between your people and us. I will provide you with knowledge of this world and in exchange, you will help me save the future. My plans will need to change to account for your presence and the new dangers I sense coming, but if we work together we can save the realms of men."
It wasn't for Ciri or Triss to agree to this, but they promised to pass along the offer but to do that they first had to find the others. The old man motioned for the young swordswoman to take a hold of one of the roots coming out of him so that she could be shown where she and Triss needed to go. Once this was done, the two women quickly prepared to depart, but not before the Three-Eyed Raven gave Ciri a gift.
"We'll talk to our new boss, and I'm sure we can work something out."
Ciri promised With that, she took Triss and herself from this place and to another cave, one that was many miles to the north.
North of the Wall. Westeros
With a small pop, I appeared in the entrance of a small cave and I was swaying slightly from having teleported so much while carrying the unconscious Ygritte over a shoulder. I walked into the cave and gently laid her on the ground. Looking around I saw that it wasn't much but it would do till the storm passed. The storm seemed to have been chasing him while he was apparating across the plain. It was now slamming full force into the cave he'd just found. Given some of what I had seen the White Walkers do in the books and tv show, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were somehow chasing me with the storm, I couldn't imagine the Night King was happy about losing one of his elite soldiers.
I took out my wand and put up every ward I could think of at the entrance while transfiguring the opening much smaller in case the wards weren't enough. The hole would allow fresh air to entire the cave without letting any wights in. As I shrunk the entrance, I took note of how many birds seemed to be watching me. I figured that the Three-Even was also interested in me.
Another small flick of my wand saw several small lights begin floating around the small cave. Then while I focused on the cave floor, I used a charm so that some of the rock flowed into a column that reached the ceiling of the small cave so as to help prevent a cave-in, something I'd learned from Charms Club. Another swish and the column began to radiate heat quickly warming the shelter. Then when things were as secure and comfortable as I could make them with magical skills, I sat down with a grateful sigh on a rock which I'd just placed the cushioning charm upon.
Now that I had time to to think I could figure out what to do with the still unconscious Ygritte who lay nearby. This was as secure I could get for now. But I didn't dare drop my guard around Ygritte in case she decided to kill me in my sleep and take my wand thinking that it alone had to the power to slay White Walkers, which of course it did not. Even the mighty Eldar Wand, would just be a nice stick in the hands of someone like her. No, I needed some method of controlling Ygritte, and she couldn't sign a binding contract since she couldn't even spell her own name. No doubt that oversight would be corrected in future updates of CYOA.
As such, I required a new method of magically binding someone to me, and thankfully the CYOA allowed for more than one means of doing that as long as I paid for the option. With that in mind, I paid for the Slave Collars option and got six of the things that I would use to control only those women too dangerous for me to trust with freedom. It was not a nice thing to do, but this was not a nice world, and I needed to make hard choices. I noted that they were half the price they should be for some reason. Shrugging, I paid for a set of six of them. Looking over to the unconscious woman I performed a quick summoning spell pulling several knives from her body, taking a quick look at the floating blades, as I'd thought they were bronze and what looked to be some kind of stone. Shaking my head, I packed them all away into one of my pockets. I could return them to her once I had her under my control.
A quick Finite and Ygritte shot up looking around as the spell keeping her asleep was removed.
"What happened, where are we?" she asked.
I could see she was afraid and trying not to show it. She had guts I had to give her that. I looked at her for a minute before explaining what had happened and where they were. I picked up one of the collars I had left out and I passed it to her.
"If you want to be my woman then you'll wear this," I instructed Ygritte, she reached forward while looking at the stainless steel collar turning it over in her hands, admiring the workmanship I guessed. Smiling at me, she slowly put the collar on and upon hearing the lock click shut, the collar vanished from sight. I could tell that the item had worked straight away as Ygritte stopped giving me looks that made me want to tie her up again, and not in a fun way. Her facial expression now spoke of devotion. Letting out a sigh of relief at one less problem.
"So what do I call you now that I'm your wife?" Ygritte asked.
"Master will do. I take it your probably hungry and thirsty?"
Since Ygritte nodded I brought out some basic food for her. The look of shock on her face was almost as great as when I had killed the White Walker, as I brought far more food out of my bag than should be in there and put it in front of her. She looked at the food for a minute and then back at me waiting. Frowning I realised that this small pile of food would be considered a feast to the free folk in the north. Motioning for her to help herself, Ygritte almost pounced on the food.
Now that I had time to think, I pulled up the user interface for CYOA. Things had changed without me knowing. From what I could tell the system, for lack of a better term, had updated to Gforce1000's EYE CO. Rule 34 Economy CYOA V2! At the same time as I had entered the setup. The system noted that if this happened simultaneously it could cause a Glitch when the system rebooted. At least I know what the cause of us all being scattered around Westeros.
Complication: Convergence.
Portal to Middle Earth +25 points
Total of 45 points
So if there had been a glitch in the system, this would explain why I'd ended up alone and in the wrong place. As for Complication: Convergence that would or already had, cause a portal to appear somewhere in Westeros that linked to a part of Middle Earth, and that could lead to anywhere from totally harmless depending when and where it was in Middle Earth's history and geography, the portal popped up but I didn't think I'd be that lucky and new portals could appear. The Witch-King of Angmar would be invading with an army of orcs sometime in the next few years I was sure of it. Fingers crossed none of the portals would lead to Morgoth's front door.
Since I was the master of a lot of witches, I had to wonder if I could get people to call me The Witch-King of Westeros, not that this was the time to be thinking about titles.
When two women suddenly appeared inside the cave. Ygritte gave an unexpectedly girly scream, and I almost went for my wand only to realise that they were Ciri and Triss, who I should have appeared with when I arrived in this world. Ciri informed me that they had met with the Three-Eyed Raven who had shown her where they needed to go. So it looked as I wouldn't be stuck here long after all.
"Come on, I can take you to the others" offered Ciri.
I needed no convincing I had no desire to stay here in this frozen wasteland, once we all had taken hold of the Lady of Space and Time she teleported us all away.