After apologizing to the bear for what must've been the hundredth time, I figured it was a good idea to start experimenting with what I could actually do with it, seeing as it was now my minion, no matter how terrible my act of bearicide had been. I also tried looking for the cub to see if I could adopt it, because I'm an idiot like that, but to no avail. It was gone, which left me with even more guilt. I just hoped it could somehow survive on its own, in the wild. Unlikely, but certainly possible. This whole thing had been one giant unfortunate mess, but I had to keep moving forward, like Eren Jaeger, but with less angst. I actually had to get used to this, no matter how much it made my stomach churn. Besides, did I actually even have a choice in the matter?
One of us was going die. There was no guarantee that the mother bear would've fled with her cub if I attacked with that spell. She could've charged me and I would've been forced to experiment with one of the higher level spells, which definitely would've turned her into mush. And it wasn't as though I could just let myself be killed, no matter how beautiful or majestic this animal might've been. It was simply a fact of life and I simply had to move on.
That said, I also felt rather giddy at the prospect of commanding an undead bear. Though, I wasn't quite sure what I'd do if it started decomposing, but I was also pretty sure that whatever magic reanimated it would also keep it from rotting away entirely. I had to wonder, though, if the undead bear was just as physically powerful as its counterpart; did the reanimation magic preserve its strength from when it was still alive or was it weaker now than it had been? Certainly, it likely wouldn't be able to bite as hard, seeing as most of its facial and jaw muscles rotted away when I cast [Chill Touch], a spell that wasn't supposed to kill it, but what about the rest of its body? Its limbs were still massive and its overall form was still the size of a damn car. Well, I suppose I'd just have to find out.
Firstly, controlling it wasn't like controlling an RTS unit or some other shit. In a very weird way, the undead bear felt as though it was a part of me, like a limb. Making it walk and move around, which I'd been doing this whole time, felt as natural as moving an arm or a leg. It was a part of me. And so, issuing verbal commands was kind of pointless.
"Experiment one, done." I whispered to myself, keeping my eyes on the bear as I made it move in circles around me. Being undead, I noted, didn't seem to hamper its locomotion, unlike movie zombies that lumbered slowly; the bear, under my control, was more than capable of sprinting outright, which was nice. Next, I had to figure out if it was still strong enough for combat.
So, with a simple, mental command, the undead bear walked up to a nearby aspen tree and swiped its paw right into its trunk. Its claws gouged out massive portions of the wood, while shaking the entire tree, though it did not break apart as I'd hoped. Then again, trees were extremely sturdy and this wasn't the best test, but it wasn't like I had other targets around; I could hardly expect a bear to take a swing at an oak tree and hope for a similar result. Plus, aspen trees kind of had a similar thickness to human limbs – fat or muscular humans, but still close enough. The second swipe bent the tree in the wrong direction, sending splinters flying across the air. The third swipe broke the trunk and sent the rest of the tree down onto the snow.
See, normally, something like this would be impossible. I knew that from experience as I liked the rugged outdoors quite a lot. Bears were strong and ferocious animals, but it'd take an entire day's worth of effort for it tomaybe break down a single aspen tree. But the bears I knew were not nearly as large as the one before me, either, and I've seen freaking Kodiaks and Polars, and not even the biggest of both of those kinds of bears came even remotely close to the one I reanimated. If anything, my undead bear minion was closer in size to some extinct megafauna, like the damn Tyrant Polar Bear or some other shit that could swallow a man in one bite. Its strength was ridiculous and was not, in fact, hampered by its reanimation at all.
Though, it was entirely possible that it was stronger in life. Not that I could properly test that so it didn't really matter all that much.
My next experiment tested my innate awareness of the bear's presence and location, the same way I knew where my arms and legs and other body parts were at all times, even when I couldn't see them. I made the bear crawl up and stand still behind me, its heavy feet making soft crunching noises each time it met the snow. I knew where it was in a very strange and unfamiliar manner, because I couldn't see it and it wasn't attached to me, like my arms were, but I still knew for a fact that it was, indeed, behind me, simply because of the manner with which we were connected. The undead bear was just a part of me, after all. That was a good thing, I suppose; it meant I'd never lose track of where my undead minions were at any given moment. The only downside was that my awareness of them did not extend to their environment; so, knowing where the bear was did not mean I knew its surroundings, just like how I wouldn't know what was surrounding my arm if I plunged it into jet black waters.
Unfortunate, but ultimately not at all surprising. Heck, I was already lucky enough to possess this much power. Asking for more was just greedy. The biggest disadvantage, I suppose, was that I couldn't leave the undead bear with predetermined commands; being a part of me meant I had to constantly give it direction, conscious or otherwise. Not that big of a deal, I suppose. That just meant I couldn't be separated from my undead minions in the future for too long; otherwise, they'd just stand there, doing nothing, waiting for me to make them move. So, in exchange for greater control, my power sacrificed flexibility.
Eh, whatever, I can work with it. But, if I was going to make contact with civilization, I couldn't just keep an undead bear around, no matter how cool that would be. So, as I walked forward, I decided to keep my first minion at a fair distance from myself. I would've loved to chuck it inside my [Bag of Holding], but this dead sow was probably a good 2,000 ish pounds – maybe even more - and my poor bag could only carry about a fourth of that. So, I really had no choice but to keep my cute little minion in the woods while I kept walking. Did it end up bumping into a bunch of trees and rocks the whole way? Yep, but there really wasn't much I could do about that. Though, the bear's freakish and unnatural resilience certainly helped it just barrel through everything it encountered; when brute force failed, it'd instinctively try to walk around whatever was blocking its path with questionable success.
It didn't take long for me to find the coastline. All I had to do, after all, was follow the source of the sound of the crashing waves, which took me a grand total of around fifteen minutes. Sharp gray rocks rising out of the waters, spiny blades of ice, and massive black boulders underneath thick dark clouds, constantly and incessantly bombarded by massive waves, each one taller than a man, crashing into the shoreline, which – I figured – must've been the reason for the look of the place. The ground beneath my feet was a mess of black shards and sharp bits of ice. No sane person would start a settlement near such violent waters or in such a desolate place; there wasn't even a single sign of previous habitation or civilization, which meant I'd be walking for quite a while before I'd find anything or anyone.
Eh, not unexpected.
But the danger presented by the waves and all the sharp rocks meant I also couldn't just trail the shoreline as I originally intended. I'd have to be really dumb to even consider the idea. A single rogue wave and I'd be done, shredded against the rocks like some dumb piece of meat walking into a blender. Shrugging, I walked back towards the treeline. "Alright, new plan. I follow the coastline and hope I run into a coastal village. But, do I go east or west?"
Shrugging, I glanced down and- aha – reached for a flat piece of rock. One side was completely featureless, the head, while the other had several scratches and marks, the tail. I was going to flip it. And if I got the head, then I'd turn east. Otherwise, I'd walk westward. Honestly, it didn't matter too much, but flipping a coin had always been my go-to decision-making tool when I felt like I was stuck on two options and didn't know which one I'd pick. The coin forced me, essentially, into action, just like now. So, I flipped the flat rock and it landed on its tail.
"Well, west it is, then!" I shrugged, before tossing the stone away and turning westward, the wind blowing behind me as I did. My stomach grumbled a bit, but being a college student prepared me for the hardship of hunger; so, I soldiered onward. Plus, an empty stomach really didn't hurt nearly as much as it used to. And I was pretty sure that my new form had a much higher constitution than plain old me, being an Archmage and all – not a whole lot, but definitely enough that a lack of food wouldn't kill me immediately. Plus, I'd spotted a few blueberries and melon berries on the way here; I was pretty sure I'd find more if I looked hard enough. Foraging wasn't particularly difficult, honestly.
An hour passed in what felt like the blink of an eye, and then two, the landscape hardly changing as I traveled; and it was at the tail end of the second hour that I spotted something- no, a bunch of somethings in the distance, dancing and swaying over the surface of the turbulent sea. My eyes narrowed as I stopped and really turned to look and focus. Ships. A lot of them too. Primitive ships that looked as though they'd fall apart in a storm. And a lot of them were falling apart, actually. Interesting. Who were they? What were they doing here? It seemed as though they were approaching this land, not sailing away from it, based entirely on the direction they were sailing towards.
I wanted to meet them. After all, this was pretty much the first and only sign of civilization I've seen since I got here – actual human beings. If they were sailing towards this place, instead of from it, then it stood to reason that they'd make landfall somewhere further north,my north, that was, since I had no idea which direction was which. I knew where the wind was going, however, and that was enough.
Smiling, my steps quickened. I considered just using the undead mother bear as a mount, but I quickly discarded that thought as I might encounter a bunch of villagers, who'd definitely shit themselves if they saw me riding a bear with a skeletal face. Now, I wasn't an expert on ASOIAF, but I was pretty sure that most of the peasantry, especially this far away from King's Landing or other places of learning and hubs of culture and trade, would be pretty damn superstitious. I do NOT want to have to defend myself against them if I could help it.
And then, not even an hour later, I finally found it – a mark of civilization, a fishing village of some sort, built close to the sea. Its people, however, were armed for battle. Oh no... the dudes in the ships were raiders, weren't they? And based entirely on the fact that their ships weren't longships, like the ones the vikings sailed on, these raiders were probably Wildlings. Great.