Chapter 2

Shaking with excitement and nerves, Ian Jones stood impatiently before the Portal with fifty other men and women as equipment and supplies were checked and double checked. The Prime Minister himself came down to Dartmoor bid the intrepid explorers good luck on their maiden voyage.

The expeditionary force consisted of Hopley the anthropologist, five linguists (between them, they cover about a good decent chunk of the world's spoken and written languages.), three historians, four biologists, five doctors, with the rest consisting of soldiers, military engineers, comms officers and other personnel.

Ian felt a slight twinge of guilt having to lie to his wife and children about where he was going before it got immediately sidelined by the anticipation of stepping onto alien soil. He was getting to live every nerd's fantasy of extraterrestrial and interdimensional travel.

The Prime Minister stepped onto a podium near the portal, his face (once described as something that came out of Wallace and Gromit) as solemn and serious as he could make it. During the election, the lifelong Labour supporter Ian once guiltily thought about voting for Cameron, just because of Miliband's Claymation face, though thankfully he quickly came to his senses later. Goodness knows what would have happened if pictures came out of Miliband in an awkward situation, like eating a bacon sandwich.

"My dear friends," the PM began, "we are here today to witness the greatest expedition to happen since humanity migrated from Africa. Though the public won't know as this mission is classified at the highest level, I will speak on their behalf when I say that your country is proud of you. I am proud of you. Because you make us all proud. And when the time comes to let the public know what happened here today, I will personally make sure each one of you gets a medal for this, for today, new maps will be made as new frontiers are explored. Good luck to you all."

The PM smiled awkwardly at the gathered team as they politely cheered and clapped for the speech. "Before you go, can we get a group photo, please?"

After another round of handshakes and photos were taken, Ian found himself cosily bundled up in the middle seat of a Land Rover that has been converted for Arctic conditions.

"Alright, attention all passengers, we are about to pass through the Portal. Please stay seated and keep your seatbelts on until the passenger seatbelt sign is off." Ian forced himself to laugh at the lame joke from the driver as he begun to understand the gravity of what was about to happen.

Before he could even give form to these second thoughts, the large, armoured vehicle suddenly roared to life and lurched forward. Being sat between two army lads who could very well have played rugby for England, his view of the outside was rather limited.

There was a sudden flash of shimmering light from outside the Land Rover, and before he could process it, the Land Rover slowed down to a halt.

They had arrived at their first destination of their expedition; a few metres away from the other side of the Portal.

"Alright lads, everyone off the vehicle and get the equipment off the trucks, we're building our base camp here."

And thus ended the shortest leg of their expedition.

Hidden in the thick trees, Harma looked at the strangers with fear. Dressed all in white, and riding on horseless carriages who growled louder than a shadow cat, these strangers looked nothing like any invader, southerner or crow she's ever seen before.

The fact that they all appeared out of thin air did not do them any favours in her eyes, for only great magics could achieve such feats, and magic was feared amongst the free folk for a reason.

She hissed in anger as one of the white cloaked men chopped down a godstree with some kind of terrifying magic sword, red sap weeping out of the trunk as the tall white tree came crashing down onto the ground.

Hours passed, and Harma watched as the strange white men quickly and efficiently made a large clearing around the woods, enough to fit a whole army and then some in there, whilst more horseless carriages appeared through a rip in the air.

She scowled as she silently crawled away and ran back to her tribe. Their lands were being invaded, and magic or not, the Free Folk would not stand for this.

Corporal Tom Townsend, known as Towerblock to the rest of his squad, was a large northerner with a chip on his shoulder the size of Wales. Towerblock at this moment was cursing the bloody Ruperts and the sodding politicians as he trekked through the biting cold towards a site of interest that was picked up by their drone. He glared at the ever-cheerful Captain Medhurst as he whistled a jaunty tune with Millsy and Bird, he scowled at the privates Mac and Rocket as they took the piss out of Skip, and he looked bloody murder at the snow around them.

Why, oh, why did that Labour Twat pull them out of Afghanistan, where it was nice and warm, to put them in a freezing shithole in another world? The fact that he was living the life the sci-fi dream was entirely lost on the dour northerner as cold winds whipped against his face.

Looking at the drone images, the site of interest looked to be an abandoned crumbling town located by a sea to the east. Military Intelligence said that it could be a sign of intelligent life as well as a possible future base of operations. To Towerblock, it made perfect sense; only intelligent life would look around and see that it was a terrible idea to live here.

Cursing as his foot sank into a particularly deep and soft bit of snow and ignoring the sounds of laughter from Mac and Rocket, Towerblock trudged on with the reconnaissance mission as the AFV rumbled on behind him.

"Sir!" Millsy suddenly called out, "We have company! They've been following us for the last klick or so!"

The whole squad went on alert, eyes sharpened as they observed their surroundings. Captain Medhurst just sighed, his mind probably still pre-occupied on how to seduce the attractive female padre. "Listen up, we go check out the site of interest, in, out, then fuck off back to base camp. We're not exactly equipped to make first contact." He finished with a side eye to Mac and Rocket, who were two walking diplomatic incidences waiting to happen.

The captain sighed again, "Millsy, keep an eye on our new mates with the drone. Any other questions? Good, move out!"

"Amazing, outstanding!" Ian listened as Carrie, one of the biologists, looked at the samples taken from the white trees with awe. Vivacious and a smile that could light up a room, Ian had to remind himself more than once that he was happily married with kids as he looked at her beaming face. "All the other trees around us are pretty much the same species as the pine trees we have at home, but this tree is utterly unique."

Carrie wasn't the only one happy with the strange white trees. Hopley and the other anthropologists were busy analysing the face carvings that were left on the trees, discussing the variety and pattern of the faces, as well as the fact that the faces only appeared on the white trees.

Hopley hypothesised that the white trees must have some sort of special or divine bond to the people on these lands. As he said it out loud, he sheepishly looked at the cut-out bark of the carved face in his hand, realising that in their haste to establish a base of operations, they may have accidentally desecrated a local sacred site.

The drones have detected human settlements nearby, primitive though they may be, it wouldn't at all do to insult the locals, though the security teams were all given orders to keep an eye on the curious natives spying on their site, in case they tried anything.

Ian was busy with his own work; aurochs, mammoths, direwolves, undiscovered species of wildcats the size of tigers, it was the discovery of a lifetime in his field. Armed with tranq guns, the soldiers helped Ian and his team to capture numerous species of animals that many at home would kill to observe.

In about a week since they settled into their new base, Ian has collected and analysed enough data for a Nobel Prize.

As he listened to Carrie explain the fascinating properties of the white wood sap and seeds, alarms blared around the base, accompanied by the sounds of gunshots echoing through night. Ian and Carrie shared a concerned look as the sounds of shouting and machinegun fire intensified. In the corner of his eyes, he saw old man Hopley's face drained as he clutched onto the white face carving.

After a few minutes, the cracks of the rifles and machineguns slowly dwindled until the only sounds were that of soldiers shouting at each other and boots stomping around the base camp. Ian nearly had a heart attack when the flaps of the tent were ripped open, and he glared at the smiling officer who barged in without so much as a warning.

"Evening," the officer jauntily greeted the scared scientists and professors as if an intense shoot out didn't just happen, "Hope our little light show didn't scare you, just thought you ought to know the good news that we had just made first contact with the locals." His pearly white teeth flashed in amusement at the befuddled look of the intellectuals, "The bad news is, we had just made first contact with the locals. Mr Hopely?"

The old anthropologist jumped as the younger officer addressed him. "Yes?" Hopley wheezed out as he held onto the face carving for dear life.

The officer just smiled at him. It was an unnerving, to see someone so calm and cheerful after what seemed to Ian to be a battle. "Base camp commander wants you, the anthropologists and the linguists to see him now."

As the officer turned to leave, Ian stood up, "Excuse me, sir? Was there any...casualties?" he asked with morbid curiosity. The army officer looked back at him with a grin on his face, "Don't you worry about us, Dr Jones, you'll be pleased to know that we have suffered no casualties. Poor buggers were armed with bows and arrows." Here the officer looked a bit pensive as he reflected on the recent battle, "I almost felt sorry for the poor bastards. Almost." With a wink and a smile, he left the tent of scared and confused middle aged volunteers.

Lieutenant Colonel Philip Smith surveyed the picture of the battleground with a grimace on his face. It was one thing to kill natives taking potshots at you from the Afghan mountain tops, but it was another thing entirely when the natives were armed with primitive bows and arrows.

The 'battle' was so one sided that it probably took the honour out of winning. Probably.

The only saving grace was that it was the natives who attacked first, and that they didn't suffer any casualties on their side, despite some near misses with arrows. It would be bloody embarrassing to report back that one of his men fell to some pointy sticks.

He briefly wondered if he could cover this up before he dismissed the idea entirely. Despite some probable whinging from some bleeding-heart labourite in his future, he had nothing to hide nor be ashamed of; the army base under his command took actions to defend themselves and the civilians under their protection, the weapons the attackers used were immaterial.

Still, it answered the question of what sort of people lived in these lands. The Lieutenant Colonel made a note in his mind to set up a new set of standard operational procedures (SOPs) with the higher ups back home to deal with the unruly natives going forward based on this experience.

Perhaps he could request some police riot gear and a police water hose to keep the body count low, he pondered as the sounds of his men corralled and beat the captured prisoners into a makeshift cell filled the base camp. Despite being attacked, he couldn't help but feel sorry for these primitives as they were probably only lashing out at something beyond their comprehension.

A cough broke him out of his musings; a Sergeant and behind him a group of people who had, in his opinion no business being anywhere near this expedition, stood at attention and waited to be given permission for entry. "The anthropologists and the linguists are here to see you, as requested, sir."

"Ah yes," he said with a large fake smile affixed to his face, "Just the people I was looking for! Please, come in!"

As they all shuffled into his tent, Lieutenant Colonel Smith put his plans to deal with back home aside and focused on making the most practical use out of these so-called experts. "Good news" He smiled brightly at the slightly confused collection of people, "We have recently acquired some locals for you to analyse." He internally winced as he said it out loud, realising how it sounded. He decided to bull through, "We need you to study them, find out about their language, their culture and their customs." He decided to ignore their rather unmilitary lack of discipline as they excitedly whispered to one another. "Any questions?"

The eldest amongst them elbowed his way to the front in the rather small tent with an arm in the air, "Dr Robert Hopley, anthropologist, just have the one question, sir," the old man smiled greedily at the Lieutenant Colonel, probably imagining this to be the crowning jewel of his career.

"When can we start?"

Varys looked around the Red Hall in awe as he was taken to be presented to the King of the Sunset Lands. Though there were some Valyrian influences on the architecture of the fort, it was full of Westerosi barbarian splendour.

His heart beating like drums in his chest, the excitement nearly overwhelmed him as the guards pushed open the large opulent doors to the throne room and announced his presence.

"Presenting to the court, the Master of Whispers, Varys of Pentos!"

As he bowed to his new client to the sound of polite applause, Varys was filled with joy as years of tears and blood had finally paid off with this crowning jewel of his career.

These being the barbarian sort, how hard could it be to protect the King of Westeros from intrigue and plots?

It was time for the spider to enter the greatest game of all and show them how it's played.

In another world, Malcolm Tucker sneezed and rubbed his nose as he read through the action reports of the recent battle that took place in the other world.

He frowned as he read that the attackers were armed with sticks and bows. This was bad, very bad optics indeed for the British army. Whilst it was a top-secret operation, sooner or later they would have to declassify and reveal to the whole world the mysterious portal to another world.

British soldiers shooting at primitive natives would have the party up in arms about colonialism; the only saving grace here was that the base commander stressed in his report that the natives fired the first proverbial shot.

Still, he had to find a way to break it to the PM without him having his knickers in a twist. For all of his virtues, Miliband was still a PM, and in his experience, PMs were all prone to making rash decisions if they perceived a threat to their standings. Whilst he doubted the PM would simply shut down the program, he could de-scale the size of the operation, which, in Tucker's opinion, simply would not do.

British troops bravely defended the base from unprovoked attacks from the locals? Savage attacks? Savage barbaric attacks?

Hmm, he'll have to think on it.

AN:

How similar should ASOIAF languages be to IRL languages? My head canon is that the Old Tongue is similar to Welsh, the Common tongue is similar to the Germanic languages, and Valyrian is just Valyrian.