I stared at the scaly, smoking black egg right in front of me for a moment, before I reached out and poked it with a stick I'd grabbed from the ground beside me. The tip of the stick began smoking and hissing, before bursting into flame and falling apart into ashes. I dropped the stick immediately and took several steps back as the egg seemed to stir for a brief moment. "Holy shit."

Yep, it was real.

And that also probably meant that all of this was also real.

I'd just been transported into another fucking world, after I came up with a character for a Dungeons and Dragons game I was going to play with my friends. I'd never actually played it before and this was supposed to be my first time. So, naturally, I came up with an overpowered character; or, at least, I thought it was overpowered, but I couldn't be sure, since I never actually was able to use it. I even came up with a badass and suitably edgy backstory, a Human Archmage of the School of Necromancy, who studied magic with the intention of wiping out every single Mindflayer, after his parents were killed by one. Freaking awesome.

Apparently, becoming that character and getting tossed into a swirling vortex in the air was not nearly as awesome.

What the fuck happened? You may ask. Well, shit, I'd like some answers too.

Basically, as I was falling down a tunnel of endless colors and shapes and figures and voices, an asshole came to visit me.

"Here's a dragon egg. The Guild usually grants access to a System, but I can't do that yet, because I'm still an intern." It spoke with my voice, though the tone had been markedly different. "So, whatever. I'm sending you to Planetos, because no one's going to miss you if you disappear and also because I'm bored. Take care of the egg, eat it, throw it off a cliff, or just leave it. I don't really care; just be entertaining. If you die, I'll eat your soul and shit you out into the void and, trust me, you don't want to be there. So, try not to die immediately or at all. Toodles!"

And... that was literally it – no introductions, no explanations, nothing. Just... that.

What the fuck.

I blinked and suddenly I was here... somewhere. I actually had no idea where I was, but the term 'Planetos' wasn't foreign to me. It was the word people coined for the World of Ice and Fire, a grimdark low fantasy written by Santa Claus or something. I actually bought the books five years ago, but never got to fully reading them, since I do have this chronic illness that makes me buy a ton of books each time I visit a bookstore, but I never actually read any of the books I buy; they just sit in my shelf and look dainty and I eventually forget about them.

The Japanese have a term for it, but I'm not sure what it is.

That said, I read up to A Feast for Crows, but never got around to reading the next one.

I did, however, watch the Game of Thrones TV show and, like everyone else, found the last few seasons to be... eh... terrible. That said, I hadn't really paid much attention to most of it, just the main plot and the main characters. Sue me, but being a law student means my brain has limited storage. But, I had no real way of knowing if this was the book universe or if it was the show universe, or a combination of both. And that was honestly a big problem. Because the book was apparently very different compared to the show, at least in terms of characterization and physical descriptions. But I figured I'd find out soon enough.

To be perfectly honest, this world was... honestly not that bad. At the very least, I hadn't been dropped in something like Berserk or Warhammer; so, that was a bonus, I guess. I'd attended quite a lot of history classes, back in college, and much of it had to do with medieval life and how it really wasn't nearly as bad or as bleak and dreary as everyone thought it was. In fact, the average medieval peasant was healthier than the average American by quite a long margin – salmon and peas and unbleached bread, combined with a hard day's labor, meant they lived pretty healthy lives, protected by their feudal lords.

However, considering how brutal and savage and unnecessarily violent G.R.R Martin made his world out to be, I wouldn't be surprised if everything I knew about medieval history was useless here. Sure, I understood how a trebuchet worked and how the printing press was invented and how steel was made from iron and carbon, but I didn't think any of my trivia knowledge was going to help me survive, especially if this was the book universe and not the show.

Oh shit, dragons.

I almost forgot about the fucking dragons.

Quite a thing to forget, considering there was a literal fucking dragon egg right in front of me.

Fuck it, I'll worry about the scary flying nuke lizards later – cross that bridge when I get to it and all that. Right now, I had to worry about myself and what I actually had that might just keep my ass intact.

So, I turned my attention inwards.

My one advantage was that I was now the character I'd created for what was to be my first Dungeons and Dragons campaign, which meant I was... really strong, actually, a Necromancer with access to every single spell in the School of Necromancy was nothing to scoff at. In time, I'd be raising armies of the undead or some shit like that – maybe. Whatever, the case, I knew this to be a ridiculous advantage as ASOIAF was honestly on the low end of fantasy, which meant magic and sorcery did exist, but they were so rare that the average peasant could go about their whole lives and never witness even the barest sliver of magic, while I now had [Chill Touch] and [Sapping Sting], straight up magical shit that I could cast whenever I feel like it.

Scary stuff, something I definitely had to try out and experiment with as soon as possible.

Aside from the magical spells, I also wore a, frankly, banal black robe that I imagined would look really cool and menacing, but now it just made me look mostly edgy and maybe a little cool; that said, it was enchanted to maintain a constant and comfortable temperature no matter where I was or how hot or cold it was around me, something that would come in handy if I somehow found myself in an icy wasteland or a scorching desert. The black robe also cleaned itself automatically, which was nice, since I did not want to walk around and smell like shit, because I honestly had no idea how to handwash anything in a world where soap probably didn't exist or, at least, not in great quantities. I called it the [Zith Robe], because I had absolute no originality and I might've been watching Star Wars when I was making my character.

A single [Bag of Holding] came with the ensemble, alongside an ebony quarterstaff that I jokingly dubbed as the [Great Boner]. And, of course, it carried over. Its horrible name aside, the [Great Boner] was actually quite useful, especially for a Necromancer; if I killed anyone with it, I'd get the option to raise them as an obedient zombie for free. Though, it'd be a bit challenging, since it had no sharp edges, which meant I'd have to bludgeon my potential victim to death.

The idea of killing someone made me feel icky all over, no matter how cool it might be to lead an army of the undead. I was... a particularly violent person; I've never even been in a fight in my entire life. So, all in all, I was a freaking wimp.

But, now, I was a wimp with magic and magical artifacts.

I suppose, the only problem was that I had access to all this power and none of the wisdom or experience to actually properly make use of them, though – once again – I didn't think too much of that and I certainly didn't see it as a huge problem, just one that I desperately needed to work on, something that I'd eventually be able to fix in time. Aint no better teacher than experience and repetition, after all.

Now, back to the present.

I'd found myself in a dry and stony cave after falling through the vortex. The air was... sterile and cold, and the only light came from the egg before me, which emitting a faint crimson glow that just barely illuminated the darkness. My one and only saving grace was that I wasn't too far from the entrance, from where a tiny bit of light streaked through just enough for me to know that it was probably midday outside. I really wasn't interested in trying to find my way through a dark place with a smoking dragon egg.

Huh, could I just place it inside the Bag of Holding?

The asshole who sent me here dropped the egg on my lap, which meant it had to be important, somehow. Sure, the voice told me to do whatever the hell I wanted with it, but I wasn't dumb enough to just leave it here or cook it or drop it off a cliff. If it was, indeed, a dragon egg, which would eventually hatch a baby dragon, then I saw no reason why I couldn't just keep it for myself. Because, let's face it, it's every nerd's dream to ride a dragon or be one.

So, gulping, I took the Bag of Holding and brought it dangerously close to the dragon egg. It was hot enough to cause a stick to catch fire on contact; I wasn't touching it unless my life depended on it and I happened to be wearing a pair of fire-resistant gloves. And since my life wasn't on the line and my hands were bare, I wasn't going to touch it. So, in my head, I repeated, get in get in get in get in get in get in get in get in.

To my surprise, it actually worked. The smoldering black egg disappeared and a mental ping told me it was inside the bag, floating in a dark and otherwise empty space – not infinite, though, the space was only enough to fit around five hundred pounds' worth of mass and the dragon egg was probably fifty pounds, at least, based solely on the depth of the indentation it left on the soil. I also placed the [Great Boner] within the same space, since I didn't need it at the moment and reaching into the bag to retrieve it would be a simple gesture.

Right, I closed my eyes and...

Yep, there it was.

My spells and spell slots. I hadn't assigned any, though the Cantrips were already there, ready to be used at any time, which was nice, since the stuff in the spell slots – as far as I remember – could only be used once per day or, at least, until after I took a long nap. I had a single slot for 9th level spell slots, two for the 8th, and so on and so forth with about nine spell slots for the 1st level, which... was a lot?

No idea.

Ugh... shit. I should've taken the time to research all the spells and what each of them did before I went and made an Archmage for my first character. I did kind of browse through each spell once, just to see which one was the coolest, but my memory was rather blurred in that regard. At the very least, some of their names made the effects rather obvious, like [Ray of Sickness]. Anything with a name like that couldn't possibly be a healing spell, right? This whole thing was honestly kind of overwhelming, to be honest.

For now, I figured, I'd just stick to first level spells and learn my way from there. And that left me with [Cause Fear], [False Life], [Inflict Wounds], and [Ray of Sickness] as the first set of spells that I was going to master. I wasn't going to touch the others until I was suitably proficient with these or unless I had no choice but to wing something and hope for the best. Besides, I also had the Cantrips to master; surely, the magic I did have at my disposal would be enough to keep my alive.

Though, that would depend on exactly where the fuck I actually am in Planetos as shit could vary wildly, depending on the kingdom and or region. That fact that it was cold gave me three possibilities: I was somewhere in the North of Westeros, which actually was an okay option, I could also be in the northernmost portion of Essos, some place called Ib, which I know absolutely nothing about, or, the worst possible option, I could be anywhere in the world and the cold meant it was the Long Night or some shit.

God, I sincerely fucking hope this wasn't the Long Night.

I breathed in and mustered whatever courage I still had left in me; I couldn't stay here and rot away in this cave. I didn't exactly know what I wanted to do out there, considering – before I was yeeted here – I was on my way to graduating law school and becoming a lawyer. Not because I wanted to, but because my parents told me to do it and I actually flourished there. But... like a lot of people, I had no idea what I wanted for myself or who I wanted to be. But... I suppose I'd just have to figure it out as I go. With that in mind, I forced myself to walk up the narrow path of rocks and gravel up to the cave entrance, towards the light. White flickers of snow drifted in and out of my vision, and the distant howling winds caught my ears.

I saw an endless field of snow and ice on the other side, which told me nothing of where I was, save for the fact that it might've been winter. The cold did not bother me as I stepped outside, my boots crunching on dried leaves and muffled by soft snow. I stumbled forward a bit, my feet sinking, before I caught myself on the base of a nearby tree. A quick glance behind me had my eyes widening in shock; the cave entrance was gone – the cave itself was gone. What was there was just... forest and snow, tree and soil and rock. But, I got over it quickly enough. The most obvious explanation was, of course, fucking magic.

Alright, I wasn't going to think about it.

First things first: figure out where the fuck I actually was, what setting and timeline I'd been dropped into.

Please not the Long Night.