Chapter 17

If the small flight over the castle had been impressive, then this journey was completely overwhelming! They had flown over the enormous Wolfswood, giant snow-capped mountains, and were now flying over a big river. At least, Jon thought it was a big river, as everything looked small from this high up.

Then, next to the beautiful red setting sun, Jon saw something otherworldly. There was a light blue half-circle, like the colour of the sky in the middle of the day, surrounded by a thin pitch-black ring.

"Gentleman, we're almost at the portal. Please make sure your seatbelts are on as we will be landing in a few minutes!"

Jon then realized that the ring was the portal between worlds the foreigners had spoken about. Now all his lingering doubts were gone. The foreigners were not from across the Sunset Sea, but truly from another world!

"If you look towards the west, then you cannot miss the giant black ring, which is the mysterious portal. We will land at one of the construction sites near it, and quickly move Brandon Stark to the other side in a truck, which is basically a mechanical oil-driven wheelhouse. Once on the other side, we take another helicopter to the hospital."

It said something about the last few days that Jon was not surprised at all the foreigners had something like a wheelhouse without horses. After all, if they could make machines fly using oil, then making them roll like a wheelhouse was probably easy for them.

As Jon took a closer look at the portal, which was steadily getting larger, he could make out some oddly shaped buildings on the ground near it, as well as some large dark-colored tents.

However, what really took his attention was a glimpse of the lands on the other side of the portal. There were enormous flat farmlands stretching as far as his eyes could see, as well as what he thought were small cities scattered in the distance. However, as the flying machine started to descent, he wasn't able to see as far on the other side anymore.

This didn't mean that there wasn't anything to see anymore, as now he could finally get a good look at what he thought were buildings. However, he was startled by what he saw. multiple giant yellow hollow metal monstrosities were scattered around what he assumed were construction sites. There were also metal carriages riding between those sites faster than he ever thought possible for a normal wheelhouse.

What caught his attention the most was the pitch-black road stretching a few miles from the portal towards the west. Jon had heard tales of the Dragon Roads build by the Valyrian's. However, he couldn't imagine those roads being as impressive at this seamlessly flat pitch-black road. What was even more astounding was that everything on this side of the portal had to be built within a fortnight, if the foreigners were to be believed.

One of the guards wasn't able to keep himself from speaking out loud and said: "What in the name of the gods are those yellow abominations?!"

"Those are called cranes, and are machines used in the construction of larger buildings. They are able to hoist up and move large amount of building materials."

Jon was still astounded by the size of the machines the foreigners were using. How would they ever make something like this, and how wasn't it falling over?!

Those questions hadn't been answered when the flying machine landed. As Jon left the machine followed by Ghost, he saw another foreign soldier approach the helicopter in a hurry. He had a brief discussion in what was probably their native language with the head of their escort before he quickly left again.

"It seems we have a slight change of plans. There will be another Westerosi joining us in the trauma helicopter towards the Düsseldorf hospital."

"But what about Bran?!, you said you would help him as fast as you could!"

"Rest assured, the other wounded is already at the helicopter so we won't lose any time."

Jon still wasn't fully reassured, but was distracted as Bran was brought out the helicopter toward one of the large mechanical wheelhouses. As he himself stepped into the mechanical wheelhouse and sat himself on a rather comfortable seat, he also thought on the Westerosi mentioned by their escort leader Hauswald. Did the foreigners offer to heal a family member of some village chief to build goodwill?

Most of these thoughts went away after Bran was brought into the machine because it almost immediately started to move. While Jon had just left a flying machine which flew at unbelievable speeds, he was still astounded by the speed at which this mechanical wheelhouse was moving. Through the windows, he saw the surroundings pass by far more quickly than when he was riding a horse at full speed! All the while, he didn't feel the wind rush around him and was just sitting still.

One of the guards apparently didn't take it well. He groaned and his face seemed like he wanted to puke.

"Here, take this!" One of the foreigners in weird yellow jackets said as he offered the uncomfortable guard a weird small bag, made out of some transparent material. "You can puke into it. Motion sickness is never fun and holding it in won't help. Try to look outside of the windows while we're riding, that should at least make it more bearable."

"Uh, what is motion sickness?" Jon asked while watching the guard throwing up part of his last meal into the strange bag.

"It's not really a disease, but more a feeling of nausea some people experience when being driven around. It's a lot like sea-sickness actually."

Oh, that did make some sense. If people got sick from being carried on a ship, then getting sick from being carried over land by a machine wasn't that weird.

After a few minutes, the truck reached the portal, which looked enormous from down here. A large iron fence had been placed across almost the entirety of the portal, leaving only two openings. On the other side of the fence was the other world, where it was seemingly still in the middle of the day.

Upon reaching the heavily guarded opening in the fence, the truck stopped and was approached by a couple of foreign soldiers. Another short conversation in their native language later, and the truck started moving again.

"Welcome to Earth Westerosi!"

Just like that, Jon, Bran and their guards entered the other world. The surroundings had changed from mostly uninhabited hilly grasslands into the huge flat farmlands he saw earlier. However, another giant fence had been build a mile or so away from the portal. When he looked a little better, Jon saw what could only be a huge amount of people standing behind those fences.

"By the gods! Why are there so many people here?!"

The amount of people Jon saw along various parts of the fence was truly astonishing.

"Those are mostly tourists, who either came to see the portal or are trying to get a glimpse of the first Westerosi on Earth. Luckily, we won't have to deal with aggressive reporters today as they aren't allowed on this side of the fence yet."

"Reporters?" Jon asked.

"People whose job it is to gather information and present it to the public. If they were here, they would all try to get an interview with you or your guards. After all, you are the first otherworlders on our Earth. Well, except for the child soldier."

Jon was almost overwhelmed by the fact that all those people wanted to talk to him, like he was someone special instead of a lowly bastard. However, after realizing they would be like that with anyone from his world, he gathered himself and finally processed the last words of Hauswald.

Unfortunately, before he could ask about the other Westerosi, who was apparently a young soldier, the truck stopped and Bran was moved towards the new flying machine, Summer trailing after his brother. Unlike the previous flying machine, this one was colored a brightly yellow. More people wearing the same weird jackets were standing inside the flying machine around another wheeled bed, accompanied by more foreign soldiers wearing those terrifying weapons.

It was when the other flying machine rose up again, which even after experiencing it a few times felt alien to Jon, that he finally got a good look at the other wheeled bed.

What he saw shocked him. The young man, who had bandages all over his legs, was wearing the sigil of House Glover! Why did the foreigners have one of house Glover's man with them?!

Seeing the shocked and scared look on Jon's face, and how one of their guards was grabbing his sword, Hauswald quickly attempted to reconcile the situation: "Look, I don't know the details, but as far as I know, two hours ago, a group of horse riders attacked our citizens unprovoked within our new territories! They are all detained near the portal, but this boy needed urgent help and is therefore joining us on this flight."

"But, that doesn't make any sense?! House Glover has been a loyal bannerman and their man wouldn't do something like that!"

"Well, Jon Snow, the attack definitely did happen and I hope it was because of idiocy and disobedience from the part of their leader, who will be facing attempted murder charges. If it isn't, then at the very least Germany will call for lord Glover to explain himself and relations between us and the North will be stained."

Jon was tempted to belief Hauswald, which scared him because he didn't want the North to suffer the hatred from such powerful realms. Further questions by the guards didn't manage to reduce his worries, as Hauswald didn't know anything more than what he had already told them.

However, what could have caused the Glover man to act like they did? And why were they in the foreigners new territory in the first place?! Jon pondered on these questions for a while before coming to a realization.

These Glover man were the investigation party his father ordered Lord Glover to send after seeing the first flying machine! They of course wouldn't have known anything about the foreigners, like the fact that they bought the land, or had those terrifying weapons aside from their flying machines!

"I belief their attack came from a misunderstanding. They didn't know you bought the land and probably thought they were fighting invaders."

"That does make sense. However, they were not only attacking our soldiers, but also the civilians they were protecting, so that does not excuse their actions at all!"

Jon didn't have anything to say against that, as he also didn't condone attacking unarmed people. At least he was now rather sure it was a misunderstanding, and not some idiotic order by Lord Glover himself. Hopefully, the foreigners would be satisfied with just those man.

Wanting to distract himself, Jon looked outside the glass windows, which continued to amaze him with their clarity.

"Wow!"

The city that lay beneath him was enormous! Large, multistory houses with mostly red roofs dotted the landscape for miles in either direction. All the roads he saw were paved and if he focused a little, he could see those moving wheelhouses everywhere on those roads. Did that mean all the smallfolk owned these giant machines? But how would they ever pay for them?!

What also surprised Jon was the lack of shacks, or even small single story houses. In Winter Town, most of the homes were like that, with only a few of them being larger and having more than one story. Did this mean that even the poorest of smallfolk on this world were richer than most accomplished merchants in the North?!

However, instead of landing in the so called 'hospital' in this city, the helicopter continued flying straight.

"Why aren't we stopping here? Isn't this the city of Düsseldorf?"

"No Jon Snow, we just flew over Nordhorn. We still have to fly for dozens of miles before we reach Düsseldorf, which is also much larger than Nordhorn."

It was then that Jon was harshly reminded of the ridiculous amount of people living in the other world. Nordhorn was at least four times as large as Winter town at full capacity, probably even larger than White Harbor, and was apparently nothing compared to their larger cities.

Jon wondered how impressive the city of Düsseldorf would look like, if even a smaller city like Nordhorn was enough to completely baffle him.

AN: As always, thanks to everyone who favourited, followed or reviewed my story!

I'm finally back with a new chapter! I've finished my master and am now free until I get a job. Once this chapter is posted, I'm also planning to go through the first few chapters and improve the dialogue. Next chapter will probably be from Ned's perspective when he gets to deal with the fallout from the fight.