"I saw it, then, great black wings amidst a field of fire – a dragon, unlike anything the world has ever seen, a beast who commands fire. And a sorcerer, a man who conjures death and commands the dead to rise. In my dream, I saw one who would bring about death and destruction, the end of all things. I dreamed of fire and darkness, ice and cold. I know now that this dream meant, but I find myself troubled by it. And, from it, I have discerned only one word, one whose meaning eludes me for it is not in any book or scroll, ancient or new, Valyrian or otherwise. It is possible, then, that this is merely a simple dream. But then I remember our ancestor Daenys the Dreamer, whose simple dream saved the Targaryen Dynasty from the Doom of Valyria. The word... or name... is Fatalis. It is foreign to the tongue."
- Viserys I Targaryen, Dragon Dreams
"Fetch!"
Nightfury let out a... an almost cute yelp as ten of my skeletal minions worked together to toss a small log several meters into the air, which the Fatalis then caught with its jaws. Nightfury then began prancing around, shaking the ground and knocking over a bunch of trees as his tail wagged left and right, fire and smoke venting from his mouth and nostrils, the log in his mouth catching fire within moments. Like I said, almost cute. If Nightfury didn't look like a demonic dragon from the pits of hell itself, then maybe I would've found it cute. As he was, the whole scene just looked amusing, honestly, and mildly disconcerting.
Here was a dragon, capable of reducing entire cities and kingdoms to dust overnight, playing fetch with me, a motherfucking Necromancer, who made use of skeletons to toss logs into the air. You couldn't make this shit up. I still had trouble believing it and I was right here.
I turned to my skeletons as Nightfury came trotting back towards us and laid the log back on the ground, tail wiggling left and right in excitement – the very same tail that was covered in rows of sharp spikes and was powerful enough to tear castles asunder and carve deep furrows upon the faces of mountains without even the barest amount of effort. Honestly, there was so much power in every little movement made by Nightfury that I honestly had to wonder just how freakishly powerful the Monster Hunters had to be to take down a Fatalis, let alone something even stronger like the Crimson or White Fatalis. They'd have to be, at least, on the same physical level as Captain America to do anything. Though, considering all the wacky weapons they used in the game, a single Monster Hunter probably was superhuman.
Mother. Again! Again! Again!
If nothing else, Nightfury's demeanor was actually quite cute. I mean, if I closed my eyes and pretended that he was, in fact, a large dog, then it'd be really cute. But then I'd have to ignore the shaking of the ground and the splintering of wood and tree.
My skeletons straightened as I turned to them. "Alright guys, you know the drill; get the log."
Ya know, one of the few things I realized after signing up to help Lysa with the rebuilding was the fact that, in this setting, information moved like a fucking slug after a night of partying and drinking. That also meant, then, that people, in general, moved even slower – in this case, the same slug after a night of partying, but that slug is now a middle aged man who hasn't exercised in years. So, after Lysa's Maester, whose name I'd already forgotten, sent out the ravens to House Stark, asking for aid and resources, I found myself with... not much to do, honestly, while we waited for whatever aid House Stark would be sending. If they sent any at all. House Stark and the North in general weren't exactly bursting with resources; in fact, the North was probably the poorest region in Westeros, despite its size. So, while House Stark ruled the north and commanded vast resources of their own, sailing out and helping Bear Island, an isolated place in the middle of the sea, seemed a bit of a stretch.
It'd been about a month, since then, and most of the work came in the form of repairing what damage had been done to the Mormont Keep, which I had my undead do, since the best kind of labor was either cheap or free.
Of course, I had plenty of help from the Maester, whose knowledge proved invaluable in the treatment of hardwood and the creation of concrete bricks, with my undead legions serving as the labor. Furthermore, Lysa decided that, since Bear Island's population had been greatly reduced by the Wildling Invasion, it was a good idea to gather every single citizen under her demesne in one place in an effort to build an entirely new city, more defensible, where the resources could be consolidated. Apparently, if the people of Bear Island weren't situated so far away from each other, then the Wildlings would not have devastated them as much.
I kind of agreed with that, but I was no expert in medieval city-building and, since the Maester agreed with Lysa's idea, then it was probably good. Either way, they had access to cheap and relentless labor as my undead workforce of unpaid interns required neither rest nor sleep, did not drink water and definitely needed no food. And so, plans for a new town were drawn up, including proper sewage and whatnot – nothing I cared about too much. The town was to be known simply as Bearington, because Lysa asked my advice for a name and it was the best I could come up with.
Hence, the town of Bearington was born, crafted from the bony fingers of my undead minions. Or, at the very least, by minion laid the foundations of it. Something of this scale would likely take decades to actually finish. But, considering my minions didn't tire or complain about poor working conditions – and that working them ragged didn't seem to damage them in any way – plenty of ditches and furrows and all sorts of weird earthen formations were carved around Mormont Keep. No idea what any of them actually were for, since I didn't care too much, but by the Maester's own words, this was incredible progress. After that, I had my undead build log cabins for the villagers who opted to stay close to Mormont Keep in the hopes of being among the first to claim land when the town of Bearington was actually formally built.
The villagers were somewhat able to get used to Nightfury's looming shadow. They no longer panicked when they saw him, at least, which was good. They also no longer panicked when they saw me, but I could tell, from their eyes, that they wished I was anywhere but around them; they said nothing, of course, seeing as I had an army of the dead, a dragon, and magic, and I also built their houses for them. Luckily, Lysa Mormont had my back. I wasn't an idiot. I knew she still had a really strong crush on me. She was also indebted to me, the favor notwithstanding. And those were two things I vehemently didn't want to take advantage of. Still, she did a swell job of reminding the peasantry that it was only by my hand that the Wildlings were slaughtered and that they were given a second chance at life.
And also because a lot of the food came from me. As it turns out, skeletal minions were really useful for fishing and crabbing. And, boy oh boy, Bear Island had a fuckton of salmon and King Crab, which was known to the locals as 'Long-legs', a rare and elusive creature, given how treacherous the surrounding waters were and how dangerous crabbing actually was. I also caught a bunch of lobster, but those guys were a bit harder to actually catch. And, even deeper underwater, were giant fucking oysters. Honestly, Bear Island was freakishly wealthy in terms of seafood and I guess the only thing that held the people back was the weather and the cold. Still, my skeletons didn't give a shit about drowning. And so, about a hundred of them waded out into the sea once a week to try and catch as much food as they could.
And they caught a lot, which would then be salted and smoked. And, in the case of the 'Long-legs' and the lobster, cooked, salted, air-dried, and then smoked. The Bear Islanders were really fond of preserved food, which was understandable, given their conditions. But it couldn't have been healthy for them, right? Whatever the case, for the first time in a very long time, Bear Island had a surplus of food.
More than that, I also used my [Restoration] spells to heal the sickly, of which there were only a few who were willing to be healed by me.
So, while I got a lot of stares, none of the villagers actually bothered me. None of them spoke to me, either, but it's not like I had to say to them or that they had anything to say that was of any particular interest to me.
I also used some that time to find as many Wildling corpses as I could, raising them all up to be my servants in death, bringing my total number of undead minions to a grant five hundred. Quite a lot, actually, and that was only accounting for the corpses that were still in decent enough condition to be raised into undeath. The rest were eaten by Nightfury.
"It's like a giant, fire-breathing, danger dog." Halga summarized my thoughts for me as she stared at the Fatalis, once more, yelp and chase after the log my minions threw into the air. I wish I could say that it'd be easy to forget just how dangerous this creature actually was, but then I'd be lying. Because one look was all it took to remind every living being just how dangerous Nightfury actually was.
"Close enough," I shrugged, turning to Halga. "You hungry? I'm making lunch. On the menu is crab and fish and crab and fish, cooked in a butter sauce, and some stale bread from yesterday."
"Not exactly," Halga shook her head. I did not miss the gauntness of her cheeks or the thinning of her limbs. Ever since her exposure to the pure Necrotic Energies, Halga became almost sickly in demeanor. I healed her every chance as I could and that was probably the only reason she was still alive. No matter what I fed her or how much she ate, or how many times I tried to heal her, Halga continued to deteriorate. Not even [Unnatural Healing], which I unlocked after using [Natural Healing] on about a dozen villagers, did anything to alleviate her constant deterioration. "But I'm going to eat anyway. Wouldn't want to die too early, right?"
I didn't want her to die. My game plan, then, was to prolong her life as much as I can, all the while healing as many people as I can and unlocking more and more of the [Restoration] skill tree until I'd eventually get something that can push back her sickness. Shaking my head, I walked up to her and used a combination of [Natural Healing] and [Unnatural Healing]; one sped up her body's natural healing, while the other flooded her with some kind of light magic that, as I understood, had the same basic function as stem cells, just faster.
The latter spell made me tired, which I figured must've been the cost of using it.
Her shriveled muscles returned and her skin took on a more vibrant complexion. By my estimation, it'd be another five days before she deteriorated again. Still, I forced a smile. "There, good as new. Now, let's get something to eat; I'm freaking hungry."
I left my skeletons on auto-pilot in the infinite game of fetch with Nightfury, who didn't seem at all bothered that I'd be leaving to eat lunch. If he got bored, then I knew he'd just fly away and start roaming around the island. Nightfury would scare a bunch of people, like that, but he wouldn't kill any of them – at least, not unless they tried anything stupid, like attacking a dragon with pitchforks and spears.
Halga and I made our way to the village, only to be met by commotion as, if my eyes didn't deceive me, a whole fleet of ships was spotted on the horizon. "Well, the wolf boys are finally here."
AN: Chapter 24 is out on (Pat)reon!
