Comments and Reviews would be welcome as always. :3
Ah and one very important thing before our quartett returns to Winterfell:
It should be obvious by now that Torrhen has to convince Robert to break off the betrothal. Should Torrhen sire a child with Elia regardless?
Yes
No
Second Moon of 285, The Greenseer's cave:
POV: Brynden Rivers, the Last Greenseer
For a year, Brynden Rivers had known something close to peace.
Not joy. Not hope. Those were luxuries long buried beneath blood and root and snow.
But peace? Of a kind. Yes these strange things had appeared that fateful day but they weren't a huge threat to his plans and maybe could be a boon. Most of the undead were largely unimpressive but some of them could be an obstacle for the night king.
The situation in the south had cooled. The false king still drank himself deeper into his own rot, while the lion sat caged by golden chains of legacy. The dragon heir and his baby sister remained across the sea, still adrift. The quiet wolf held the North, the Vale and Dorne slept, The Stormlands were celebrating, the Reach was grasping, The Westerlands were recovering and the Riverlands were contemplating.
And the abominations had vanished.
That had been the real balm. The two abominations, Torrhen and Lyarra Snow — beasts of contradiction. Born of mortal flesh, yet cloaked in otherworldly presence for what else could have brought them back? Tools of chaos, woven into a song he had long labored to shape and bend toward purpose.
Their disappearance a year ago — swallowed by strange energies on that cursed island — had given him something rare: hope.
Maybe the world could still follow its ordained script. Maybe the song would return to the right key.
But then just now, the Weirwood tree network had sung again.
He was seated still as ever, fused with root and throne, when the vision came like a spike to the mind — sharp, bright, blasphemous.
It began with light — not firelight, nor starlight, but glowstone, radiant and wrong. A gateway had been torn open once more, a wound between realms. And from it stepped them.
The boy and girl. Changed.
He saw their bodies, flesh again, not code or artifice — and knew they had gone through. Wherever that place was, it had given them something new. Or perhaps returned to them something old. Either way, they were more than before.
And they were not alone.
Behind them walked two strangers. A man and woman — tall, lithe, hard-eyed. Their movements were sure, honed by years of danger. And the weapons they bore…
Bloodraven's eye — the one that remained — narrowed.
He had seen Valyrian steel in every form forged across centuries. Yet what the strangers wore was not Valyrian, and yet it echoed its dread. Black metal, glinting like dragonglass kissed by stars. Smooth, unnatural, humming with silent threat.
"From where do they come?" he rasped aloud, his voice like bark peeling from dead wood.
No answer came. Not from the roots. Not from the singers. Even the wind in the cavern held its breath.
He felt the wind shift in the great northern woods. Something ancient stirred on Skane. His attention had been split for too long, keeping the shadows at bay. But this—
This demanded more than attention.
He could not reach them, not with weirwood alone. Skane had been a blind spot, available to him but until now completely forgotten. But now it was important again.
A soft rustle behind him — a Child of the Forest crept closer, whispering in their tongue. He did not need translation. He felt them asking for orders.
Bloodraven leaned forward, if such a thing could be said of his rooted form. The vines around his ribs creaked. His breath came slow, deliberate.
"They must not reach Winterfell," he said coldly. "Not yet. Not ever, if it can be helped."
A silence answered, then the rustle of orders being carried on.
"They cannot be allowed to shape this world further," he murmured, half to himself, half to the dead gods.
For the first time in decades, Brynden Rivers opened his other eye — not the red one, but the one that had long since crusted over with white.
It bled.
They had returned.
And he would not let the song be rewritten without a fight.
**Scene Break**
Second Moon of 285 AC, Skagos
POV: Torrhen Snow
It wasn't long after arriving at the northwestern coast of Skagos before they noticed something strange in the woods.
The telltale rustle of leaves. The unnatural groan. The greenish shimmer of something that should not be.
A zombie lurched from behind a boulder, skin a pale green and eyes glowing red. It wasn't alone.
By the time the fifth one fell, pierced by an arrow from Alex's bow, Torrhen had come to a worrying conclusion.
"They're spawning here too," he muttered, wiping blood from his blade. "The mobs. Not just on the island. Here. On Skagos."
Steve, silent as ever, nodded gravely. Torrhen narrowed his eyes and scanned the horizon.
"If they're here," he said, "then what about Essos? Or the Summer Isles? What about the rest of the world besides Westeros? They don't have a wall that likely sucks all the magic of the continent into it."
Lyarra didn't answer. The question haunted her too. Slowly night ended and the sun began rising in the distance. Soon they could see Zombies and Skeletons burning around them.
The coastline vanished behind them as they pushed forward, claimed by the thick pine forests and jagged slopes that made Skagos a land apart. The ground was treacherous — too many sharp rocks and uneven paths, as though the land itself wished to remain untouched. But now, finally, they stood before the edge of the first true sign of civilization: a village with walls.
They paused on a hillside just beyond sight. It was time to make themselves less threatening.
Steve and Alex were the first to act. Smooth, practiced motions — armor clattered into bundles and was stored away into invisible spaces. Netherite vanished, chainmail replaced it. More modest. More medieval. Torrhen and Lyarra followed suit, each drawing their chainmail shirts from their inventories. It was better this way.
The village wasn't large — a few dozen homes at most — but it was fortified with a wooden palisade and thickly clustered torches lining the interiors. The outer houses were newer, hastily built, their foundations rough. Firelight danced behind shuttered windows.
Torrhen gave a dry chuckle.
"Well, seems like the smallfolk here have already learned what we did a long time ago. Walls and torches keep out the monsters."
The gate opened not with resistance, but relief. They were welcomed in with wary but happy faces, eager to welcome well equipped strangers into their midst but curious what they could want in a random village on Skagos.
The villagers gaped when Steve summoned bread and cooked meat into his hands. Their awe doubled when Alex made a dozen loaves appear in neat stacks and passed them around. It wasn't magic they understood — it was miracle. Cries went up, some weeping openly, calling them messengers of the gods.
They handed over iron axes and pickaxes, sturdy tools from their stash. The villagers fell to their knees, overcome.
It wasn't long before they were brought before the elder — a wiry old man named Boromir, his shoulders bent from years of toil but his eyes sharp.
"A third of the people who were here a year ago are gone," Boromir said bluntly and tiredly. "Starved or torn apart. If you hadn't come, the rest of us wouldn't have lasted the next winter. We have little meat left, and only the warriors dare hunt. The woods belong to the monsters at night now and there isn't enough game out there to feed all of us since the residents of the surrounding villages have fled here. Farming has become more difficult than it already was."
When Torrhen mentioned their intention to take control of Skagos, Boromir looked at him as though he had seen the sun rise in the west.
"I have no doubt that the smallfolk shall welcome you if you have more of where that food from earlier comes from but it's the Stanes you will need to convinc.e"
"Technically they are already my bother's bannermen, they only need to swear to follow my rule and I will travel to Winterfell to become one of my brother's bannermen"
"... I take it you are one of those Starks then?" Boromir asked with a contemplating expression.
"Indeed, my father was the previous ruler of the North" said Torrhen with a slight smile.
The elder gave a short, barked laugh and bent the knee there and then, without hesitation.
"You'll do," he said simply. "The Stane boy has been talking about pledging to Winterfell again. I'll take you to them myself."
They marched inland, Boromir guiding them through the rough terrain. Soon, the holdfast of House Stane rose before them — crude stone walls, thick timber gates, and behind it, the Central Hall where Skagosi lords were already arguing their futures.
Lord Ralf Stane, gaunt and hollow-eyed, sat in the great chair while his two sons stood on either side. Jorl, the eldest, dark-browed and iron-voiced, wore disdain like a cloak. Ulf, the second son, younger and calmer, looked toward the future — not with hope, but with strategy.
"The monsters do not reach the mainland," Ulf was saying. "Our scouts confirm it. If the mainland is still safe, then the choice is clear. We kneel in exchange for help. We survive."
Jorl slammed a hand on the table. "And lose what? Everything we've bled to keep? We are not southern lords!"
"And we will not be anything," Ulf retorted, "if we're all dead."
Murmurs rippled through the hall. Some nodded, others scowled. Ralf Stane looked at none of them.
That was when Torrhen stepped forward.
The room went still. Dozens of eyes turned on him, and on the figures behind him — Lyarra, Alex, and Steve.
"I am Torrhen Snow," he said. "Son of Rickard Stark. And I am here to offer you a choice."
A silence lingered, heavy and unsure. Then—
Cakes.
Alex raised her arms, and in a blink, delicate round cakes stacked with cream and berries appeared in her palms. She set them on the long table. More appeared. The hall gasped. The smell alone — sugar, vanilla, fruit — was something few in this land had ever known.
A hush fell as Ralf leaned forward, staring at the impossibility.
His lips quivered, "What is this... are my old eyes deceiving me?" he asked as stunned as every other Skagosi was at this moment.
"No Lord Stane, your eyes are indeed not deceiving you. Me and my compatriots have come to offer you food and more" Torrhen said.
"Have you been sent by the gods? Have our prayers finally been answered?" asked someone from the crowd.
"3 years ago, my brother here and I perished and yet due to some reason, we were brought back by the gods. So it might just be possible that we have been sent back by the gods" said Lyarra honestly.
"So this is… a gift then?" Ralf asked, hesitant.
"No, you will not get this without something in exchange" Lyarra said. "This is merely a glimpse of what can be if you kneel."
"And if we kneel?" he asked. "What becomes of House Stane?"
"You remain," Torrhen replied. "You keep your lands. Your name. Your seat. But you answer to me. Not to Winterfell. To me."
He let the words settle.
"You'll have aid. Resources. Protection. Roads. Crops. The monsters will be driven back, the land reclaimed. All I ask is your loyalty."
Ralf turned to his sons. Jorl burned with fury but grudingly agreed, even he could not argue against kneeling to messengers of the gods. Ulf inclined his head, a small smile on his face.
"I... I wish to see what else you have to offer before making my situation. I have to take care of dozens of settlements, I hope you understand." said Ralf Stane slowly, careful not to enrage the four people in front of him who may yet be the saviours of Skagos because he knew, Houses Crowl and Magnar must be suffering just as House Stane was.
"Perfectly, Lord Stane, allow us to show you what else we have gathered" said Torrhen and with a motion they began throwing iron swords, axes, pickaxes and hoes onto the ground before sets of chainmail and solid plate armor followed. Then they went around and gave out loafs of bread and baked potatoes to the locals.
The old man breathed deep, then bent the knee.
"I and Driftwood Hall are yours, my lord," he said.
Torrhen felt the weight of it then — the first kneeling lord, the first step in reshaping Skagos. Not as a Stark's bastard, but as its master.
The hall followed, one by one. A few grudging, some eager. But they knelt.
Later, Torrhen gave orders. Messengers would ride — to House Crowl and to the Magnar. The summit would be held near the island's center in half a moon, during that time the quartett would return to Skane for a while and fortify the island. By the time they returned to Winterfell, he wanted all of Skagos under control.
But even as he stood among kneeling men, with Steve and Alex at his back and Lyarra beside him, Torrhen knew that they had to push onward. The island was only the beginning.
They would need a fortress soon. Skane proved to be a very fitting spot especially if the portal to the minecraft overworld stayed around which seemed to be the case so far.
And then… then they could finally return to Winterfell.
**Scene Break**
POV: Lyarra Snow
The messengers were already gone, heading west and north to deliver Torrhen's summons to House Crowl and the Magnar of Skagos. With the first step complete, the four of them made their way back to Skane.
Travel was faster now. The terrain seemed less hostile, or perhaps it only felt that way — the weather was clearer, the air brisk and clean. Winter might be watching, but it hadn't descended just yet.
To Lyarra's amusement, the long trek gave her plenty of time to observe a far more interesting development: Steve and Alex.
It was subtle at first — longer glances, shoulder bumps, the way Steve offered his food to Alex before even eating himself. But it was the arguments that made Lyarra grin. Small, petty squabbles over building order or design, laced with heat and far too much proximity.
She and Torrhen exchanged a knowing look more than once.
Then, one night, as they set up camp beneath a copse of frost-tipped pines, Steve and Alex slipped away without a word. It was only when Lyarra realized they hadn't returned after an hour that she raised an eyebrow.
They came back eventually — both flushed, both pretending they hadn't been gone that long, both completely unable to meet anyone's eyes.
Torrhen stifled a laugh.
"Uhm," Alex said, fidgeting with her sleeves, "I take it one of you would agree to officiate our wedding?"
Lyarra blinked. Then grinned, wolfish and bright. Her first wedding in both lifes!
"Gods, yes."
**Scene Break**
It was a short, simple ceremony. Northern custom didn't require pomp, only witness and honesty.
Under a pale sky on the frost-covered field outside their construction site, Lyarra stood between Steve and Alex, both nervous and awkward in formal garb cobbled together from their inventories. She spoke the words, and they said their vows with blushing cheeks and stiff shoulders.
"I now name you husband and wife," Lyarra declared with a triumphant smile. "Now kiss or something."
Alex didn't hesitate. Steve needed a nudge.
They gave the newlyweds the rest of the night off. Lyarra caught a glimpse of Steve dragging Alex into the pair's temporary house, and smirked the whole way back to camp.
With the four of them working together — two Starks with meta knowledge and two master builders from another world — the castle rose faster than any structure in Westerosi memory.
They chose an even plain just above the southern coast, ringed by sparse pine forests and close enough to the portal cave to be defensible.
Frostgate, they called it.
It was a marvel of two worlds: part Westeros, part Minecraft, entirely their own.
Massive deepslate walls and chiseled stone accents rose up, interlocked with redstone traps and gate systems that could crush or trap invaders. The outer walls were high and thick, each cardinal direction capped by a seven-story guard tower with internal spiral stairs, lantern-lit watch decks, and space for mounted ballistae. The inner walls, slightly lower, enclosed the heart of the stronghold — the Keep of Frostgate.
At its center stood a twenty-story tower, square-based and flawlessly symmetrical, lined with lava-heated floors and glowstone chandeliers in every room and corridor. The topmost level was a watch post complete with mounted spyglasses. Below that was the solar, and beneath it, the family's personal quarters: warm, secure, and filled with sleek furniture of smooth stone and polished wood.
The redstone elevator made traversing the tower a breeze — silent and instant.
The Great Hall was at the tower's base: vast, warm, and inviting, flanked by smaller wings where guest rooms and servants' quarters were built — each wing three stories tall, with internal plumbing. Below the main floor, the kitchen and pantry took up all of Level -1, rivaling a noble house's in scale.
Below that:
Levels -2 to -5 were the dungeons, dimly lit with redstone torches, lined with damp cells and interrogation rooms.
A hidden door at the northern end of the fifth level concealed a narrow tunnel — just two blocks wide — leading straight back to the portal cave, a last resort or secret escape.
The outer grounds teemed with function and forethought: two training yards, multiple barracks, stables, a deep well concealing an infinite water source (a detail that made Steve immensely proud), and two-story greenhouses arranged along the east and west. One large, empty patch in the south had been marked with cobblestone outlines — the future godswood, once they found a heart tree or brought a sapling to Skane.
Between the walls, they built rows of two-story houses for the smallfolk, interspersed with smaller barracks. A working village within the fortress.
On the third night, the four of them stood on the tower's observation deck, a cold wind brushing past their cloaks. The stars blazed above them, the sound of windmills and water wheels murmuring below.
"Frostgate," Torrhen said quietly, hands on the stone rail. "She's beautiful."
"Efficient," Steve added, though the corners of his mouth twitched with pride.
"She'll keep thousands safe," Lyarra murmured.
Alex exhaled, then leaned into Steve's side.
"And she's just the beginning."
From here, they could see the sea beyond Skane. See the woods waiting to be tamed. See the flickers of campfires where settlers had begun to arrive after they had mentioned their intention to build their stronghold here back at Skagos. So far it was only two dozen but more were bound to arrive on the island.
As much as it had been (rightfully) considered cursed once, the original monsters had slowly been replaced by minecraft mobs, Torrhen guessed that the original monsters must have not been too pleased with the appearence of what they deemed had to be rivals and attacked the minecraft ones. In the long run the cursed monsters had clearly been no match for the overwhelming numbers of the minecraft mobs.
This was their foothold — their first real home since being reborn.
And the world had no idea what was coming.
**Scene Break**