Bear Island - Mormont Keep
The Hour of the Lark ( 6 p.m)
Staring through the window while awaiting the return of his father, Jeor Mormont, the twelve-year-old boy kept his gaze fixed on the void. To any outside observer, he seemed merely a reserved lad, but before his eyes, the green interface of the System glowed with clarity.
With a mental command, he accessed the status panel:
Name: Alaric Mormont
HP: 15 / 15
Sex: Masculine
Race: Human of the First Men
Class: Druid
Level: 4
Experience: 3,490 / 6,500
Alaric felt a tightening in his chest as he analyzed the progress bar. He had just survived an ironborn invasion—a traumatic event that, mechanically, had been the greatest source of experience in his life. However, the reality was discouraging. To reach level 5, he still needed 3,010 experience points.
'If nothing like this invasion happens again, it will take me more than ten years to level up,' he thought, feeling a wave of genuine frustration wash over his strategic mind. Peace, though desirable for Bear Island, was the greatest obstacle to his growth as a Druid.
He clenched his fists. The sensation of powerlessness was a bitter taste. He possessed the knowledge of a modern world and the power of a system, yet he was trapped on a poor, isolated island where opportunities for growth were scarce.
Trying to push aside his irritation, Alaric navigated the interface to the spells tab. Upon reaching level 3, he had already unlocked access to 2nd-circle magic, but something new caught his attention: a third slot for level 2 spells was open and available.
'This new slot must have come from hitting level 4. Since it's not a mandatory choice—like picking a new Cantrip or a Druidic Circle—the system lets me choose whenever I want, just like it did with the two level 2 spells at level 3,' he deduced.
He began scrolling through the list of options, the descriptions floating in his mind with technical rigor. His eyes stopped on a specific name: Healing Spirit.
Level: 2nd Circle DruidDuration: Concentration, up to 1 minuteEffect: You summon a nature spirit in a 5-foot space. The spirit can heal anyone who enters its space.Size: 5 feet (approx. 1.5 meters)Components: Verbal and SomaticDescription: A spirit assumes a transparent form. The spirit can restore $1d6$ of health, a number of times equal to $1 + \text{Wisdom Modifier}$.At Higher Levels: When casting this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the health restoration is increased by $1d6$ for each slot level above 2nd.
'The spell doesn't require a material component,' Alaric repeated to himself in his mind. 'And since my wisdom modifier is +2, I'll be able to have the spirit heal up to 3 times.'
A sudden idea crossed his mind. It wasn't just about healing wounds; the possibilities for using that spirit in a world without advanced medicine were vast. With renewed determination, he selected the spell.
At the moment of confirmation, a strange sensation filled his skull. The knowledge of how to cast the magic—the exact intonation of the words and the precise gestures to mold natural energy—flowed into his mind, becoming as natural as breathing.
Even after filling the slot, Alaric continued reading the other available spells just to expand his theoretical repertoire. Analyzing the spells, he realized how Moonbeam—a spell that causes $2d10$ damage to anyone within a 1.5-meter area and lasts for 1 minute plus his wisdom modifier—could have quickly finished off the ironborn pinned against the shield wall, or even earlier, as they passed through the gap in the palisade. Having gone through his first experience of war, Alaric realized how useful this spell could be and decided he would certainly use it in the future.
After analyzing it, Alaric moved on to the next spells; however, his mind was a compass that always returned to the same point: the 3,000 XP required. The brief satisfaction of learning a new spell was quickly swallowed by the weight of that numerical goal.
Frustration made him close the spell tab with a sharp mental gesture. He needed more than just magic; he needed a plan of action to avoid withering away in the monotony of the island.
His mind began to project possibilities, evaluating the map of Westeros like a hunting ground:
He visualized the dusty roads leading toward King's Landing or Highgarden. Participating in southern tournaments wouldn't just be about gaining prestige, but an inexhaustible source of quests. Resolving the intrigues of spoiled nobles or hunting bandits terrorizing fertile lands would surely yield generous experience rewards, far superior to what the isolation of the North offered.
There was also the bloodier path. Becoming a mercenary in the Free Cities or the Riverlands would give him what the System seemed to value most: direct conflict. In an environment where the blade was law, he would have constant opportunities to strike down enemies and accumulate power through real combat, transforming the violence and chaos of the world into steps for his own evolution.
But his eyes turned North, toward the colossal wall of ice.
'Would the Night's Watch accept someone temporarily?' he questioned himself. He knew the black brotherhood was in shambles, begging for any man who knew how to hold a sword. 'With their precarious situation, they would hardly refuse a volunteer, even if only for a season.'
He argued to himself that if protocol were an issue, he could simply pay for his stay and supplies. "Removing the financial burden of housing me would be an unbeatable argument for men who are starving," he thought.
'And if they are still stubborn, I can simply go my own way,' he concluded with icy calm. 'Going beyond the Wall alone wouldn't be suicide for me.' He considered his survival magic and the versatility of his wild shapes. Where common rangers saw certain death and biting cold, Alaric saw an environment where he could hunt threats the System would value immensely, growing in power far from any supervision or political ties.
As Alaric pondered the probability of surviving and growing beyond the wall, he remembered a quest that was still in progress: GRAND QUEST: THE RESTORATION OF MORMONT.
Curious, he opened the quest tab to reread the details of his first main mission. Upon looking at the requirements, his eyes widened. The progress numbers for the second requirement, Military Power, and the fifth requirement, Population, had changed drastically.
Where it previously read:
Military Power
Progress: 2.12% (127 of 6,000) / 6.35% (127 of 2,000) and 4.2% (21 of 500)
Now the system showed:
Progress: 1.48% (89 of 6,000) / 4.45% (89 of 2,000) and 3% (15 of 500)
Population
654 / 20,000 (3.27%) → 616 / 20,000 (3.08%)
Shock coursed through his body. The losses in the battle against the ironborn weren't just names on a list of the dead; they were points subtracted from his most important mission.
'Holy shit...' Alaric cursed mentally, his frustration reaching its peak. 'I haven't just failed to make progress—I've regressed.'
While still staring at the quest progress numbers, Alaric caught movement out of the corner of his eye through the window. The dirt path leading to the entrance of Mormont Keep was no longer deserted. Silhouettes emerged through the light mist that often occupied Bear Island, moving with the sluggishness of those carrying the weight of exhaustion. With a mental command, Alaric closed the System panel. The interface vanished, returning his full physical vision.
He narrowed his gray eyes. In the distance, the figure of Jorah led a group of men. It was not the triumphant march of a hero; it was a procession of survivors. Many staggered, leaning on one another, while others were carried on makeshift stretchers. The glint of their armor was stained by mud and dried blood.
Alaric didn't wait for them to reach the courtyard. He turned to the small crowd of servants and workers huddling near the inner walls, their faces pale with anxiety.
"Open the door!" Alaric ordered, his voice cutting through the air with an authority that made the servants obey immediately. "There are men arriving!"
Regan ran to the heavy internal doors of the keep's hall, pulling back the latches. When the wooden panels groaned open, Jorah entered first, his face a mask of exhaustion beneath the torchlight. Behind him, the flow of the wounded was devastating. The hall, where many family members were already gathered seeking news, transformed instantly into a scene of horror.
Panic was immediate. As the first stretchers crossed the threshold, the women and old men waiting inside burst into cries. The sound bounced off the ceiling beams, mingling with the smell of blood that now filled the stifling room.
Jorah wasted no time. When he opened his mouth, his voice came out hoarse:
"Maester Yves! Where is the Maester? Call Yves now! He needs to tend to these men!"
Maester Yves approached hurriedly, his chains clinking. He carried a leather bag and began to move among the prone bodies, performing a quick triage while trying to push away the desperate hands of relatives throwing themselves over the wounded.
Alaric observed the scene with a reserved calm. He took a step forward, crossing the distance toward Jorah.
"I need you to take three of the most severely wounded to the godswood," Alaric said, pointing to the group in the most critical condition.
Jorah turned to his brother, looking at him as if standing before a stranger.
"The grove? What are you talking about, Alaric? They need to be tended to by Maester Yves right here."
"The Maester is overwhelmed, Jorah," Alaric insisted, maintaining eye contact. He tilted his head slightly, implying what his brother already suspected. "I can heal some of them. With just a few words."
Jorah froze at the innuendo of magic. The conflict on his face was visible; he remembered Alaric on the battlefield, but the idea of "sorcery" here, inside his own home, was difficult to swallow.
Thanks to his Insight skill, Alaric read Jorah like an open book. He saw the extreme exhaustion and the pressure of not wanting to make the wrong decision. He decided to push a little further and leaned toward his brother's ear.
"Some of them might not survive long enough to be seen by Maester Yves—or might not survive even with his care," Alaric whispered. "I can give them a better chance to live."
Jorah closed his eyes for a second and yielded.
"Take Torrhen, Beren, and Eddard to the grove. Now!" Jorah ordered.
The command caused an explosion of protest in the hall. Torrhen's wife, already kneeling beside her husband's stretcher, grabbed the cloak of one of the soldiers.
"No!" she screamed, her eyes wide with terror. "Why take them away? The Maester is here! You're going to let them die!"
The families of Beren and Eddard joined her, forming a human barrier of despair. "They need fire and bandages, not trees!" an old man shouted. The soldiers hesitated, looking from Jorah to Alaric, intimidated by the grief of those families.
"Make way!" Alaric intervened, his voice calm but carrying a firmness that brook no argument. "They will be cared for."
Confused and under the screams of protest from families trying to hold onto the stretchers, the six soldiers hoisted the wounded and began to maneuver toward the hall's exit. Maester Yves raised his head, sweat dripping down his forehead, looking perplexed.
"What are you doing?" Yves questioned. "I've already looked at them—they are gravely injured! They must be put on the table and stitched! Hey, you there! Clear everything off the table!"
Alaric, who had started walking toward the door, spoke:
"You won't be able to give your attention to everyone, Maester Yves, so it's better to leave some of them to me."
"A few months of training with me doesn't make you an expert, boy!" Yves bellowed. "And why take them to the forest? Even with the little I taught you, you should know that religion only appeases the mind, not the body!"
Alaric stopped and turned to him.
"You'll understand later, Maester Yves. Or you can just ask my brother; he should have an idea." He then turned to Regan. "Regan, go to my quarters, get some of the mistletoe sprigs and bring them to the grove as fast as possible. Don't question it, just bring them—it's important."
Without waiting for a response, Alaric withdrew, leaving behind the sounds of groans and the weeping of families in the hall as he headed toward the Godswood.
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The godswood of Bear Island was a place where time seemed not to flow the same way as in the rest of Westeros. While the keep's courtyard was a chaos of screams and metal, the grove was a sanctuary of silence and reverence. In the center of this isolation stood the Weirwood Heart Tree, an ancestral tree whose bark was white as polished bone and whose five-pointed leaves glowed a crimson red so intense they looked soaked in fresh blood. The fallen leaves formed a thick, soft carpet over the damp soil, muffling every footstep.
The other trees of the island—oaks, pines, and sentinels—kept a respectful distance, circling the Weirwood at exactly five meters away, as if fearing to invade the vital space of that ancient entity. The atmosphere there was supernatural; the air was thicker, heavy with the scent of ancient earth and an energy that made the hair on one's arms stand up. The face carved into the trunk, its eyes weeping red sap, seemed to observe not just the bodies, but the souls of those who entered its domain.
Almost at the foot of the white tree, upon the carpet of red leaves, three men lay, their groans the only dissonant note in the peace of the grove. They were Torrhen, Beren, and Eddard, with three discarded stretchers nearby.
An axe had opened a deep gash in Eddard's left shoulder; if not for the cloth used to staunch the wound, his bone would be exposed, and even then, blood had soaked his doublet down to the waist. Torrhen, the only one struggling to maintain consciousness, was in a deplorable state: an arrow had struck his abdomen, a vital point draining his life with every slow beat of his heart. The arrow had been removed in haste, but the hole had expelled much blood before being plugged. Finally, Beren, the youngest among them, was pale as weirwood bark, with multiple puncture wounds in his torso caused by spears. All had lost so much blood that their skin appeared waxy, and the cold of death was already settling into their extremities.
Around them, six men sat, drenched in sweat and panting. The effort of carrying their companions up the hill after a long, tense battle had left them exhausted. In the center of it all, Alaric remained standing, looking over the wounded.
One of the men, wiping sweat from his forehead with a trembling arm, looked at the boy.
"And now?" he asked, his voice failing from fatigue, wanting to know the reason for this—why they had brought men so badly injured into nature instead of giving them to the Maester.
Alaric did not answer. His eyes were fixed on the wounded, but the man felt a chill; Alaric didn't seem to be looking at the bodies, but at something beyond, something invisible floating in the cold air of the grove. After a prolonged silence, the guard turned to his companions, shaking his head in a defeated tone.
"Forget it. They're fucked."
The man didn't know how close to the truth he was, but for different reasons. Alaric truly didn't see the wounded flesh in a conventional way; before him, the green System panel glowed, translating the lives of those men into data.
Name: Torrhen (27)
HP: 8 / 30
Name: Eddard (25)
HP: 6 / 22
Name: Beren (17)
HP: 3 / 20
'Beren will be first,' Alaric decided mentally, closing the floating panels with a blink.
He inhaled deeply, feeling a strange connection to the Weirwood at his back—stronger than the last time he had been there. Alaric began to move his arms in a fluid arc, his hands tracing geometric patterns in the air that seemed to distort the light around his fingers. The somatic component was precise, a dance of fingers weaving the invisible energy of the forest. Simultaneously, he began the verbal component.
The words that left his mouth were not the Common Tongue of Westeros, nor High Valyrian. It was the Druidic language. To the guards, the sound was incomprehensible and disturbing; it sounded like the whisper of thousands of leaves flying in a gale, the dry snap of old branches breaking, and the distant roar of a river rushing over stones. It was the voice of nature itself channeled through a human throat.
The men exchanged glances and slowly crawled away from Alaric. Torrhen, in a surge of adrenaline triggered by the strange sound, opened his clouded eyes. He looked at Alaric, then at the face carved into the tree.
"Where... where am I..." Torrhen tried to ask, but his voice was only a hiss of air.
At that moment, Regan emerged from the trees, running and out of breath, clutching several sprigs of mistletoe.
"Alaric! I'm here, I have the bra—" Regan stopped abruptly. The words died in his throat as he saw a vibrant green light begin to emanate from the empty air in front of Alaric.
The men, startled by the phenomenon, scrambled to their feet and backed away, stumbling over roots in their panicked carelessness. The green light was not a static glow; it began to condense, gaining mass and form. Slowly, the light took on the appearance of a small figure, about one meter tall. It was transparent, with a pulsing emerald aura. The creature had slightly pointed ears, large eyes, and skin that looked like it was made of bark and leaves, though its essence was purely spiritual.
"What the fuck is that?!" shouted the guard who had spoken before, panic rising in his voice.
"What..." Torrhen stammered, his eyes wide with fear.
'The spirit resembles one of those Children of the Forest from the show,' Alaric observed to himself, maintaining his reserved calm as the spirit hovered over the dying.
Ignoring the terror of the healthy men, Alaric gave the mental command. The Healing Spirit moved first toward Beren. The transparent figure hovered over the nineteen-year-old, and a wave of green warmth enveloped the hole in his torso. The spirit, possessing intelligence, healed the most serious wounds piercing his organs, causing the blood flow that had soaked his bandages to slow. He wasn't fully healed, but he was pulled back from the edge of danger.
After healing him, the spirit floated to Eddard, and then to Torrhen.
Seeing the entity approach, Torrhen tried to crawl away, hands digging into the red leaves in a desperate gesture of flight. But he was too weak. He squeezed his eyes shut, expecting a cold touch or death, but felt only a comforting warmth, as if the summer sun had touched his open wound.
After healing the three, the spirit's energy was exhausted, and it vanished in a gust of wind that rustled the Weirwood leaves. Alaric remained still, looking again at what seemed to be nothing to the others.
Torrhen: HP 14/30 Eddard: HP 12/22 Beren: HP 9/20
The wounds hadn't vanished completely, but the scars were beginning to close and their life force had returned. The danger of immediate death had been dispelled.
Alaric closed the status panel with an imperceptible sigh. He turned around to find a stunned Regan, who still held the mistletoe sprigs as if they were holy relics. The guards looked at the men who were now breathing a little easier, and then at Alaric, fear and respect warring on their faces.
"Regan. The sprigs," Alaric said directly, reaching out his hand.
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