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TWL Chapter - 74
🕑 Added 2025-04-30 21:30:21 +0000 UTCRobert couldn't believe how slowly the journey was progressing. Days stretched into weeks, the royal procession crawling northward like a wounded snake, picking up strays along the way.
Was this entire journey unnecessary as everyone around him kept insisting? Maybe… but he was the king—even though it didn't feel like it most of the time—and he had decided to go North to see his friend and convince him to come help run the kingdom.
If he was being honest with himself, he'd also been so bored and desperate for escape from the cesspit that was King's Landing.
And the main reason he'd ordered this journey in the first place…
He missed his friend.
Robert had accumulated many regrets over the years but letting his temper destroy his friendship with Ned ranked among the worst.
When he had first declared that he was going to Winterfell, he had expected to leave with a handful of his Kingsguard. He hadn't expected the overwhelmingly positive reaction to his announcement. It seemed everyone from highborn lords to kitchen servants wanted to visit Winterfell these days. The place had become the talk of the realm since the White Mage had taken up residence there.
More surprising still was Cersei's lack of protest. He'd prepared for weeks of venomous complaints, but she'd agreed with barely any emotion shown on her cold face.
Well, he shouldn't have been shocked.
Cersei Lannister had changed. He still called her a Lannister bitch out of habit more than anything else but her incessant whining had virtually ceased.
Robert wasn't blind. He recognized that something significant had happened during the mage's visit to King's Landing. What exactly had transpired between the mage and his wife, he couldn't say, but he wasn't about to question it. Her nagging had all but disappeared, and if court gossip was to be believed, she'd even disciplined Joffrey properly for once.
He had hoped that she would inspire a change in the boy as well.
Unfortunately, it seems that he was asking for too much. The boy's irritating whining about the journey had begun before they'd even passed through the city gates.
He almost regretted bringing Joffrey along, but leaving him behind would have created a lot more problems. Who knows - perhaps the little shit would learn something useful in the North. Maybe he'd even befriend Ned's children.
Robert snorted at the thought. The chances of that happening were about as likely as him fitting into his old armor again.
"How much longer is this going to take?" Robert grumbled, shifting uncomfortably in his saddle. His massive frame was never meant for long journeys, and age hadn't improved matters. His horse probably hated him for it too.
"Should be no longer than a day or two, Your Grace," Barristan replied.
It would have taken longer, but he had been adamant about not staying in any of the castles along the way longer than absolutely needed for rest. Even then, the sheer size of the procession was slowing their progress to a crawl.
"Good," Robert sighed. "I'm getting tired of riding all day."
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Roose looked at the letter he had received with slight confusion.
He didn't show it on his face, of course, even though he was alone in his solar. Displaying emotion, even in private, was a weakness. One never knew who might be watching.
Things had been changing at a rapid pace lately.
He was worried.
It was very rare that Ned Stark would call for a gathering of the lords under him. The last two times that had happened were when they were at war.
And even though this was not a call to banners, it felt like the prelude to one. As if Stark knew a war was about to break out.
That… was not good.
Where had he gotten such information in advance? Something told him it had to do with Winterfell's latest gift from the gods.
His ancestors had always kept their blades sharp, and there had been moments when Roose thought perhaps it would be him who would finally make his ancestors proud. After all the current patriarch of the Stark family was called the honorable Stark, that was not an opportunity he could let pass by.
Honour could not rule the north.
But it seemed that the gods still favored the Starks by sending them a mage who, if his spies told him correctly, was terrifying when he needed to be—and he didn't need to be most of the time.
The smallfolk loved him, they seemed unable to grasp what he was capable of.
Maybe they knew but were choosing to ignore it. Either way, Roose did not have that luxury.
His presence alone had transformed Winterfell from a place barely visited by anyone not of the North to one of the largest cities in Westeros that was not a port.
The Manderlys had to more than double the size of their ports to accommodate the number of ships that were making port from all corners of the world.
Whatever plans he had once harbored now had to be changed or scrapped entirely.
If that wasn't bad enough, the mage had been given his own land by Stark—a seemingly meaningless part of land where there was nothing more than trees and animals.
From all the spies he had sent, none returned that had wandered beyond the public roads. The path through the Forbidden Forest had now become the safest route for anyone to travel through the North. There were no bandits there. It was the safest part of the wilderness as long as you did not wander off the main roads.
It was clear what the mage had let loose—more of his pets in the forest who did not take kindly to trespassers.
Roose ran a pale finger over the parchment, re-reading Stark's words. A gathering at Winterfell to discuss matters of grave importance to the North. A need to prepare for danger, though against whom was not specified. The King himself would be present.
There was a careful vagueness to Stark's missive that troubled Roose more than any direct statement would have. Ned Stark was not a man of mystery or games—if he was being intentionally oblique, the matter must be extraordinarily sensitive.
War preparations without naming an enemy? That wasn't like the honorable Lord of Winterfell at all.
Roose set the letter down, his mind calculating. Something big was happening and he knew little.
Perhaps this gathering would provide clarity. At the very least, it would allow him to assess the mage in person, to determine exactly what manner of threat—or opportunity—he might present.
Preparations had to be made. He had to consider who he was going to take to Winterfell. He would have to take Domeric. And then there was Ramsay to consider. His bastard had seemed restrained lately. Perhaps he would be useful for something. He would have to keep a close eye on him though, to make sure he does not do anything stupid.
Roose reached for his quill and began drafting his response to Winterfell. He would attend, of course. And he would listen, it's what he did best.
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My biggest weakness at the moment was my perception, and I don't mean that in some abstract way. I mean it in the most literal sense, and I had a plan to help me fix it by leaps and bounds.
If I couldn't become unkillable even after I figured that out, I deserved to die.
But I wasn't going to jump headfirst into it again and try it on myself. I'd learned my lesson—no more fucking around. This world was a lot more dangerous than I had first assumed.
Most of my plan was purely theoretical at the moment, but it worked on a concept that I knew was true in any world with magic in it.
Names were powerful.
Exactly how powerful depended on a few things. Mainly on the caster's belief on what the name represented, but belief was a term open to interpretation.
Now, belief didn't necessarily mean belief in a deity or religion, which was good because I wasn't really a religious person in my last life or this one. I used to go to church, but that was only because my mom made me. Once I realized I had free will, I had stopped going entirely.
I believed in a lot of things, but what I truly believed in were the stories. Mythologies were one of my favorite things to read growing up.
If my mom had realized that early enough in my life and weaponized it, I would have probably turned out to be a religious nut. I mean, if you thought about it, Jesus Christ was basically the OG isekai character.
Child born out of mysterious circumstances? Check.
Travel the world while teaching a bunch of followers who had no idea what he was capable of? Check.
Perform miracles by healing the incurable? Check.
Fake your death and peace out after the plot ends? Check.
…Wait, I had done some of that too.
Was I an isekai character?
No, no, that's not possible.
There was no way I could be an Isekai character. I knew myself well enough that I did not have the attention span or the ability to commit to writing anything more than a few sentences.
Right…?
Best not go down that rabbit hole. Where was I? Oh right, the Naming ceremony.
The foundation of the spell was simple enough—give something a name and it would embody the qualities of that name.
And that's where I had the advantage. Coming from another world gave me a rolodex of fictional names and what they meant to billions of people and the weight they carried.
But the real power came from the caster's belief in what that name represented. So I could only use the spell on characters that I really... really... liked.
That was the only constraint I was seeing so far, but that still gave me so many options.
Now, the only way I could make this safer was not to go through with it at all.
But that wasn't an option. Not after what I had seen beyond the wall.
I had to test this out. The idea had already taken root in my mind, weaving possibilities I couldn't ignore.
Characters I'd grown attached to over years could now be more than just two dimensional characters. They could walk beside me.
"Having second thoughts?" Vaylara's hovered nearby.
"No," I replied, focusing on the intricate pattern of runes I'd spent days perfecting.
"A sane person would."
"Then yes."
"It doesn't work that way."
"I was lying to sound cool."
"That... does sound like something you would do," she sighed, drifting closer to examine my work.
"So, do you really want to go through with this? At least tell me what the name is so I can cast the spell properly."
"Ha! I could tell you the name, but it wouldn't help since you wouldn't know what I'm talking about."
This was it—the culmination of weeks of research and preparation.
I took a deep breath and positioned myself at the center of the ritual circle. The runes came to life slowly, pulsing with an eerie blue glow that slowly shifted to a deep crimson.
I started the chant, my voice resonating with power:
"Beyond the realms of life and death, across the possibilities of reality and delusion, I solemnly name thee... DONKEY!"
The runes pulsed in a dangerous color I'd never seen before—a shade somewhere between violet and black that shouldn't exist in nature. I heard something akin to glass shattering in the distance.
The walls started to shake slowly at first but gradually I was starting to worry about a cave in. The air grew heavy, charged with energy that made my skin tingle and my hair stand on end. For a moment, I worried I'd miscalculated—that this experiment might actually tear a hole in reality itself.
Then the light coalesced, forming a ball in front of me. The ball gradually lowered itself into the peacefully sleeping donkey at my feet.
I held my breath as he stirred and woke up, looking around drowsily before becoming completely awake and saying, "Hi there! Pretty dreary place you got here," in a cheerful voice with a hint of an accent I hadn't heard in years. "It's a lot better than a swamp, though."
I blinked, staring at the gray-furred donkey standing in my ritual circle, looking around with curious eyes.
"Yes, hello Donkey. My name is El. Welcome to Westeros."
"Westeros? Is that somewhere far away?" he asked, his large eyes blinking innocently.
I laughed at that. "In a manner of speaking, but not in the way that you know."
"Oh, cool!" The donkey's tail swished excitedly. "Why'd you get me here?"
"For your company of course."
His eyes widened impossibly further. "Really…? No one's ever wanted me just for my company before!"
His voice cracked with emotion. "I'm not crying, something fell in my eye."
I grinned in victory.
It worked.
It actually worked.
Suddenly, Donkey froze mid-sentence, his ears flattening against his head and his eyes growing wide with terror.
"I don't want to alarm you El," he whispered in a scared voice, "but there is a scary ghost lady floating behind you."
Vaylara hovered nearby, her mouth hanging open in complete shock.
"What..." she finally managed to whisper, her form flickering erratically. "How..." She seemed incapable of forming any additional words, her centuries of knowledge overwhelmed by the sight before her.
"That's Vaylara," I explained, trying to calm the trembling donkey who was now backing away slowly. "She's my magic tutor, and I am pretty sure at the moment she is more scared of you than you need to be of her."
I couldn't help the smug grin spreading across my face as Vaylara continued to float in stunned silence.
"I'd say the ritual was a success, wouldn't you?"
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A/N: If I get eight more patrons today I will post the next chapter in 24 hours.
Comments
William
I've realized that a good name for El would be just the name he already has... Plus Kal... He could name himself Kal El. It doesn't help now because I only thought of this while rereading the story, but that would have been a cool exploit, because he could probably pull on the belief he and his old world had in the full name, while also pulling on the belief he has gathered in his current world as El.
Sully
Out of all of the things he could have named I would have never guessed donkey. 😂😂
Asriels
Bestiality will not be supported!
Phantom knight who can’t think of a better nicknam
Ooofff hope you find work you like and can pay for what you need
asdo
.....did he summon Donkey to breed his dragon?
THE SAVAGE KITTY
Donkey hehehehehe
