Bernard, Leader of Blight Brothers.

 

Bernie frowned as he watched Henry and Randall run after the merchant carts and try to climb on to the rearmost cart. His men had already gotten one cart in the ambush and killed all the guards the convoy had. Unfortunately the men he had sent to stop them from retreating had died to the remaining guards before Bernie killed them and the other three carts had escaped. That's why he didn't like working with ironborn cunts, too much bragging, no discipline and piss-poor ability in anything other than sailing. They weren't supposed to be chasing down carts on Kingsroad today, especially not now since they had been forced to "donate" all but his horse to the "just" cause of the Lord of Summers Refuge. Noble cunts.

 

He had sent 3 of the men who fought with him at the Pyke (they were the only one he trusted not to run away with the loot) to guard the fallen carriage while he chased down the carts with the remaining 6 men and by now they should have caught up to the lumbering carts even considering that the carts were going full pace.

 

"If you bastards don't stop the carts by the time I get there, I'll run ya over!" Bernie shouted willing all murderous intent he could into his shout. It seemed to be very effective as the entire group sped up significantly, proving once again how much these lowlives were holding back. He had named his group 'The Blight Brothers' but he swore that sometimes these men were more of a blight onto him rather than their enemies. All the lot of them wanted was to feast on food, booze and woman but none of them were willing to work for it. Bernie missed working with trained soldiers instead of these lazy scumbags but he didn't have much of a choice now that he was wanted for murder and rape.

 

CRACK!

 

In midst of his musings Bernie looked up after hearing a loud sound of wood splintering. That was the sound of victory. In sync with his men a huge grin made it's way onto Bernie's face as the first cart tilted to the left and fell down with a thundering crack as its axle broke with such force that it's wheel flew off into the distance. Rest of the carts had no choice but to stop, the road was surrounded by the forest on one side and rocky uneven ground on one. Men, women and children quickly scrambled out of the carts to run but they were surrounded perfectly (that was a first) by armed men. Bernie almost felt proud of them actually doing something useful for once but then he remembered why they were chasing them down in the first place and he could only shake his head in disappointment. 

 

The next few moments were spent tying the woman, children and men up. If he hadn't beaten the concept of restrain into his men they would have killed the men and started raping the woman here on the road itself. Wouldn't that be a sight for any armed force that came their way and slaughtered them with their pants down. Well he would have liked to kill the men too but they needed the captured men to pull the broken wagon to their hideout. He wasn't too worried about them rebelling, the lives of their family demanded their obedience afterall, and vice versa.

 

"Hello there." 

 

Bernie whipped his head up at the sudden greeting that came from ahead of the road. He saw a boy, barely 10 or 11 nameday old walking towards them. Clean white teeth, new woolen clothes, smooth black hair and a pretty face without any blemishes that went well with bright dark eyes. The difference between Bernie's scruffy orange hair and overgrown mass of orange beard hiding his crooked yellow teeth and grimy face couldn't be more stark. Bernie envied the boy's bright eyes and scarless face, unlike his dark and wild eyes and the burn mark on his face, courtesy of Thoros of Myr. Pushing down his memories from that day, Bernie scowled at the boy as his men tensed up before the boy stopped a good distance away from them.

 

"I'm unarmed friends." The boy announced lifting his hands before he took a gold coin out of the pouch tied to his waist and held it up with a grin, "if you count the gold out."

 

"What the fuck do you want, brat?" Bernie yelled as he signalled his men to stand down, generally he would have just let his men kill the boy and take his gold but the boy's confidence and swagger along with his clean appearance made him stay his hand. He was here to make a deal. Bernie wasn't stupid like the rest of the miserable bunch in his crew, he prided himself in being one of the most resourceful bandit he himself knew of. He would atleast hear the boy out before he decided whether he liked the gold more than whatever the boy was offering. "Be quick about it or I'll split your head me fucking self."

 

"Peace brother," the boy held up his hand placatingly, "I just want to make a trade: the lives of those innocent men and women for some gold."

 

The scene was silent for a moment before everyone burst out laughing. Even the prisoners looked a little dismayed, but Bernie was silently observing the boy. He seemed a little flabbergasted by the response before chuckling along, clearly not getting the joke. Bernie immediately recognised his type. Innocent, naïve, still not seen bloodshed or winter. North was a hard place and it bred hard men. Kindness was a virtue here till it didn't cost you nothing. Nobody would give up gold to save up lives of strangers, especially low-born like themselves unless it was some southern cunt with too much money and kindness with little in the way of brains. He had heard tales of common folks spending gold dragons in the south daily while people in the north considered themselves lucky if they came across 4 gold dragons twice their lives. However the boy didn't seem completely empty in the head...

 

"You want to trade with bandits, brat? Are you touched in the head? Why shouldn't I just split you in two and take the money myself?" Bernie's voice cut over the laughing, "Seems like a much better deal to me."

 

"You could but then you wouldn't find the other much bigger half of the gold, would you?." The boy calmly said looking in his eye, "You look like you could use some gold. Just let them go and I'll guide you to the gold after that." 

 

"Ha! And then you and your hidden friends will slaughter us like fucking animals!" Bernie scoffed at that. However he couldn't deny he did need the gold for the inevitable clash with the Sharks. "And who's to say you even have any?!"

 

"Here's the advance!" The boy threw the pouch over to his men who picked it up and brought it to him. Bernie felt his breath catch when he saw the amount of gold crammed in the pouch. Genuine gold dragons. He could tell just by looking. He almost felt the palpable power of these coins and the future they promised. He could only imagine how much he could do with more..

 

"New deal, you do as I fucking say. We'll take the gold, we'll tie you up and you'll take us to rest and if it's as you say it is, we'll let you go."

 

"Forgive me, my friend," the boy cocked an eyebrow as he scanned the men surrounding him, "but despite our newfound friendship I don't exactly trust your people to deliver on that promise. How about this? You let the women and the children go, I'll take you to the gold and then you can let all of us go. You can choose to take the meager 40 gold in this pouch or you can let the woman and the children go and earn yourself" the boy paused for a moment to look everyone in the eye before he continued, "400 gold dragons."

 

"400?!" a round of gasp went around the scene as everyone was stunned by the number. Nobody present here had ever seen 40 gold dragons before today, let alone 400. Which angered Bernie quite a lot because that number itself should have told them it was a bluff but the confidence that the boy spoke with had him second guessing for a moment whether he was lying or not. Shaking his head he squashed all his doubts. War had taught him much: Living in reality was the necessity of survival.

 

"You fools! Do you think it's possible for any brat to have 400 gold dragons?!" Bernie berated his men, who quickly recovered and glared at the boy, "Get tha-

 

"No! Not for any brat! But it's possible for this one." An aged voice echoed out from the forest before he could complete the sentence and a small gray old man emerged from the forest, " He's Robb Stark. Son of Eddard Stark, heir to Winterfell and the future Warden of the North.  I'm the Maester Luwin, the Measter of Winterfell. Here's our house sigil."

 

The old threw a metal badge hung around his neck as a necklace. One of his men scrambled to catch and brought it to him. The entire forest was silent, even the birds had stopped calling for a moment before everyone processed the old man's statement. Bernie examined the pendant. Pure silver, fine craftsmanship, finer than any he had ever seen and no rough edges. A side profile of a direwolf with it's fangs bared was displayed on it. He had seen a similar one on the banners of the forces of House Stark during the Greyjoy rebellion. It was real, no matter how he looked at it, it was real. The age seemed to match, handsome face, clean clothes, good teeth and sophisticated way of speaking combined with his confidence and their proximity to Winterfell, all pointed to a single fact. This was Robb Stark. And he recognised a Maester when he saw one. 

 

"It's real." Bernie put as much strength he could in his voice. He couldn't show a weak front here especially not when half his men seemed to be ready to run while the other half were glaring the boy with murder in their eyes. This was a delicate situation. If they played it right then they would be rich or they might have bigger problems than their little turf war.

 

"Take the deal and we all go home happy. Kill us and all of us will be very, very sad." The boy spoke slowly in a warning tone. "I'd prefer if we could all go home happy. Agree to my conditions and I swear by the gods, old and the new, no one will know this ever happened and we can all go our separate ways and never meet each other again."

 

Bernie was conflicted. He didn't trust the noble to not retaliate in anyway but he couldn't kill the boy either. Not just the Starks but the entire North and Citadel would be out for their blood. He could send the boy on his way but he didn't know if he would lead a force to exterminate them just because he rejected him. Either way they were fucked, so he could only choose the way that gave them some hope of surviving and possibly profit them.

 

"Let the kids and the old go. We'll keep the women here with the men." Bernie ordered his men, the children and the old were slowing them down anyway but the women were important for their control over men and he might have to deal with mutiny if he took the women away. "Remember Starks: No. Smart. Moves." 

 

"None whatsoever." the boy smiled, while the Maester just looked grim as Henry stepped towards them and patted them down before tying their hands behind them tightly. He decided to put them with the women and ordered his men to get the prisoners to work and carry the carts to their hide out. He gave the Stark Heir and the Maester one last look and he had to admit, naïve or not, the kid had some balls.

 

***

 

Al was shitting bricks right now. He could barely stop his legs from trembling.

 

'Why didn't I listen to Maester Luwin?! Why did I think drama club would have prepared me for this?!'

 

Al prayed this would have to be the last time he had to do this or he would die out of heart attack before somebody killed him. The original plan had been to simply launch an ambush from both sides of the road with their hunting bows and pick them off one by one, before one of them engaged them in close combat and the other shot. However as a wise philosopher once said, "Bad luck never lost a race." and this world seemed to have bad sense of humor when it came to fucking up his life. Almost as if in a replay of the day his cart was smashed he watched in slow motion as the axle of the front cart broke and the entire convoy halted out of the range of their bows. Without much time to think Al quickly took their travel money and ran to the site of crash. 

 

Since then he been doing an improv the whole time and he was quite proud of himself...till the part they figured out he didn't have any hidden gold.  Thankfully Maester Luwin was too caring, brave and stubborn to sit back and do nothing and saved his hide cause he was ready to book it out of there in that moment.

 

"You shouldn't have done this, Maester Luwin." Al spoke as he squirmed like worm on the ground and tried to bring his tied hands to the front. "I had it under control. I was actually about to say that I'm Robb Stark before you came"

 

"Really?" Measter Luwin looked at him with squinted eyes, "I do hope you have a better plan for getting us out of here than you did getting us in here."

 

"It was a perfect plan actually and an equally perfect execution." Al grunted as he rolled on his sides and slid his hands below his legs, "As for the rest of the plan, this was just phase 1 and with this Phase 1 is successful. Now we just need to figure out what phase 2 is."

 

"There's no phase 2, is there?" Maester Luwin almost seemed resigned now, "And what's a phase? Nevermind I think I get it."

 

"Of course not. There is a phase 2. I just need to figure out what it is. Aa-ha!" Al exclaimed as he finally brought his tied hands forward instead of his back "Freedom at last! Don't worry so much Maester Luwin, we just need to figure out one thing. WWGD" 

 

"What?" 

 

"What would Gandalf do?" Al replied with as much of a serious face he could muster without cracking. Al always tried to be polite, courteous but distant with everyone. That's why he didn't have many friends in his past life but he did let his guard down and bust out bad jokes with his friends time to time. Till date he was only able to do that with 3 people and one of them was Jory. Now Maester Luwin was fourth. The old man had been kind to him and treated him like his own grandson. He risked his life for him even when he disobeyed his advice when infact according to his orders he was supposed to do everything Maester Luwin told him. He had been helped before by various people but nobody had risked their lives for him. Nobody. Especially when he clearly didn't have anything Maester Luwin could want from him.

 

"Well do you have an answer?" Maester Luwin cocked his eybrows at him skeptically, trying to hide his dismay.

 

"Well, no." He shrugged, "Gandalf never got caught by bandits you know but...he did teach me a magic trick."

 

Al grinned and open his shop window.

 

With a tap of the button Al felt his heart bleed when he saw his QP turn to 90 but with a quick flourish of his hand he presented a knife in that materialised out of nowhere to Maester Luwin . Al took a moment to feel smug at the fact that he had made the old Maester's jaw hit the floor before he quickly glanced around to see anybody had noticed. Thankfully most women weren't able to see his actions thanks to the angle he was sitting at and the bandit guarding them was too busy ogling at the women with large breast. He would have preferred not to show it to Maester Luwin too but he had made sure to present it with a flourish to hide the actual moment of materialisation.

 

"This Maester Luwin, is Phase 2." Al grinned as he saw the Maester admire the blade before turning to him with a serious look in his eyes.

 

"We are going to have a talk about great many things after this." Maester Luwin for the first time gave Al a stern look before smiling, "And I think Phase 2 is going to need to be more than just a knife. Listen carefully now..."

 

***

 

Al silently and carefully sneaked to the bandit that was supposed to be watching them. Well he was technically keeping watch, if you counted ogling at funbags of a married woman that. He couldn't blame the guy tho, cause damn! Whoever married that woman was one lucky son of a-

 

Shaking his head clear of those thoughts he carefully avoided the rocks or any debris that would make a sound. Thankfully the man was too busy watching the girl who was trying her best too flaunt he assets as Maester Luwin had somehow convinced her too, while trying very hard not to stare at him. Remembering what Jory had told him about hunting and how to give the game a quick death, Al took one last breath and sprung up.

 

Shunk!

 

The blade silently and almost effortlessly pierced through the man's chin and lodged into his brain. Al was almost worried it would pierce the skull through and hurt the hand he had put on the top of his skull to steady his head. Thankfully the man was on the shorter side and standing on lowered ground already which helped greatly or this would be a lot more messier. Removing his blade he quickly but gently laid the man down as a fountain of blood began to gush out of the orifices on his face. Al looked up to see few woman had looked away or were holding a hand over their mouth at the sight of blood but most were just anxious about whether the rest of the bandits would notice.

 

There were about 6 woman present and 4 of them looked in their late twenties with one of them being the eldest in thirties and one teen of about 18 year old. At his signal, Maester Luwin started to lead the women towards the sparse forest on the left of the road, while the bandits were busy looking through the loot and directing the men to repair the cart. Jory was lurking in the forest and would guide the women to safety after they played their role. 

 

Al quickly looked for the downed man's sword and immediately discarded the idea of using that. It was so chipped and rusted he wondered how it could be used as anything more than a blunt instrument. Maybe he should have just fought them with his boxing skill if this is all they had in ways of weapon.

 

 

'Fuck', crying tears of blood, Al felt like he was paying to be in a toxic relationship with this abusive system as he pressed the buy button and watched 30 QP more drain from his account. He pretended to take the sword from the bandit as it materialised in his hand. It was a sword that practically shined when light fell on it's smooth lines and he couldn't help but feel a little scared by sharpness it's edge radiated. For all it's QPdigger tendencies system had high standards for everything, it even automatically adjusted the size and balance of the sword to his preference. This sword could probably serve as a family heirloom of normal noble house for generations but it was just a basic sword for system. Even with the knife he felt like he was cutting a tomato rather than piercing a man's head. Such blades could clearly not be replicated by the current technology of this world. He opened the shop for the last time to buy the last thing he had his eyes on. Ambidexterity trait. He had seen how advantageous ambidexterity was when he attended the Arnis workshop to rack up his achievements for sports scholarship after he got kicked out of the boxing team. While everyone was blocking and then attacking, the instructor was able to block and attack at same time thanks to him training himself to be ambidexterous. He thought it would match his style perfectly and it was the only thing he could buy right now that would help him and he needed all the help he could get. 

 

 

Al's eyes bugged out when he saw the limited offer that he vividly remembered not being there before. 

 

 

'You cruel fucking bastard!!!!' Al almost cursed out loud as he felt tears welling up in his eye, 'Why would you show this to me now?! This was clearly not here before! You know I don't have the QP! You even put a smiley face near the price! This thing is sentient! I knew it! I'm not going crazy! You're having a laugh about this aren't you, you sick bastard?! ' 

 

Al actually felt tears drip down his cheeks. He had never cried once after his first day here but now a fucking skill offer was making him cry! This had to be the cruelest cannon event of the entire timeline.

 

'Fuck you! A real man doesn't need that! Though I really wan-'

 

"Hahaha! Gods be good! We actually hit a silk caravan!"

 

"We're rich! We're rich Bernie! You could dress a giant with all this silk!"

 

"I told you to have a little more faith in me, didn't I you cunts?! Oi, be careful with it!"

 

A roar of collective laughter brought Al out of his depressive spiral. The bandits had crowded around a cart and were gingerly opening the crates and checking the silk rolls stored in them.

 

'I'm crying here right now and you guys are laughing? Why the fuck are you so happy, huh? Share my pain with me you bastards.'

 

Al quickly brought the ambidexterity trait and walked to a squat rock and waved his sword in the air and then pointed to the lone bandit guarding the prisoners working on the cart. Hopefully Jory understood the signal cause none of the bandits seemed to have eyes for anything other than the loot. Al stretched a little and started walking towards the bandits. He had people to save, bad guys to kill, hurt feeling to nurse and no QP to spend. All in all, his day was ruined and his disappointment was immeasurable.

 

'Huh, almost reminds me of that time I got left behind in Florida...Nah, who am I kidding? Florida was way worse.'