Before his arrival in this world, Aldric had spent countless hours absorbing information. Raid guides, lore deep-dives, and occasionally, when insomnia struck, wilderness survival documentaries. If a man with a camera could find protein on a rocky shore, a max-level Paladin could certainly find a meal on a pristine fantasy coastline.
But that was a task for tomorrow. Today, he was exhausted.
Aldric dragged a flat slab of slate from the riverbank and propped it over his campfire. Once the stone was scorching hot, he laid the gutted river fish onto it, letting them pan-fry slowly.
The stone-fried fish lacked the smoky depth of yesterday's spit-roast, but the crispy, rendering fat offered a distinct, satisfying crunch. The only drawback was the miserable portion size. He needed more calories.
The next morning, Aldric strapped his largest woven trap to his back and marched to the sea.
Fate, it seemed, favored the bold. He arrived just as the tide was pulling back, exposing a jagged, alien landscape of tidal pools and mudflats.
The physical laws of this world mirrored his own. A sun, a moon, stars... and therefore, gravity and tides. As the ocean retreated, it left behind a bounty of careless sea creatures stranded among the rocks and gravel, trapped until the water returned.
Aldric was an inlander by birth, but he possessed an ocean-sized appetite.
He waded into the muck. Relying on the flawless recall of his "Memory Palace," he identified the safe catch, mimicking the foragers he had watched on screens years ago. He pried oysters from the shadowed sides of boulders. He snatched scuttling crabs from the wet sand. He harvested kelp and netted stranded shrimp.
"High yield, low effort," Aldric muttered, tossing a handful of shellfish into his basket. "Why did I waste three days weaving those useless river traps?"
The ancients said: Live off the mountain if you're near a mountain; live off the sea if you're near the sea. They weren't kidding.
In just over an hour, his basket was heavy with a day's worth of protein.
He returned to camp elated, submerging the woven basket in the slow current of the river to keep his catch alive and fresh. Then, he faced a culinary dilemma.
He needed a pot.
He looked at his armor. Specifically, the helm of the Lightbringer set. It was a masterpiece of magical engineering, forged in the fires of a raid instance, designed to withstand dragon breath and shadow magic.
"I am so sorry," Aldric whispered to the epic-grade item.
He propped the golden helm upside down over the campfire, filled it with fresh river water, and tossed in the chopped crab and shellfish.
"Forgive me. When I was packing my inventory, I didn't think to grab a saucepan from the vendor junk. You'll have to make do."
He drank cold water from his crystal alchemy vials and ate savory seafood chowder from a legendary helm. It was a blasphemy of gear, but the soup was incredible.
After eating his fill, Aldric laid the leftover meat on a flat stone, leaving it to cure in the sun for future rations.
A routine took hold. Wake early, wash in the freezing river, head to the shore with the basket, and gather the morning tide's bounty.
With his survival secured, Aldric spent his remaining hours on the beach. He watched the empty horizon, hoping for a passing sail, while drilling his weapon forms. He swung the Serpent's Striker endlessly, solidifying his combat techniques, deliberately unlearning the muscle memory that relied on the dormant Holy Light. He had to fight like a mortal man now.
But the North is a harsh, unpredictable mistress.
On the eleventh day, as Aldric practiced a complex shield-bash sequence, the sky turned the color of a fresh bruise.
A wall of black water rose on the distant horizon, devouring the sea, marching relentlessly toward the coast. The air pressure dropped so fast his ears popped.
Aldric froze. "A storm surge."
He dropped his stance and sprinted for the cliff.
Back at the river shoal, he scrambled, grabbing his drying racks, his emergency rations, and his water vials. He dove into the shallow cave just as the heavens opened.
It wasn't rain; it was a bombardment. Thunder shook the limestone, and lightning strobed through the gaps in his wattle-and-daub wall.
At first, Aldric watched the rising river through his peephole with mounting dread. Had he dug his cave too low? If the water breached the lip, he would drown in his sleep. But the estuary widened enough to swallow the surge, and the water crested just inches below his threshold.
For two days, he sat in the damp, claustrophobic dark, chewing on tough, salty fish jerky, listening to the wind scream.
On the morning of the third day, the silence returned.
Aldric kicked open his branch-woven door. The world had been scrubbed clean. The swollen river had completely submerged his little beach, washing away his stone stove and his drying racks.
He swam across the rushing current to the opposite bank and marched toward the sea, carrying his one surviving fish trap.
He was hungry. The jerky had sustained him, but he needed fresh meat. Furthermore, a storm this violent often washed up deep-sea prizes. A tuna. A dolphin. Perhaps even a dead whale. If he could harvest the blubber and smoke the meat, he would be set for months.
Filled with grim anticipation, Aldric walked the debris line, scanning the wreckage.
Dead crabs. Tangles of rotting kelp. An uprooted pine tree.
An oak barrel.
Aldric stopped. Wait.
An oak barrel?
He dropped his basket and sprinted down the beach. He fell to his knees beside the cask, half-buried in the wet sand. It was bound with iron hoops. He pried off the lid. Empty, save for a puddle of seawater.
"A shipwreck," Aldric breathed, his heart hammering against his ribs.
It was a grim discovery, but it brought a surge of profound relief. This barrel confirmed that civilization existed. This wasn't some savage, untamed island at the edge of the world. There were ships. There was trade. There were people.
He wouldn't have to live out his days alone like a wild man.
And where there was one barrel, there might be more. Crates of iron tools. Sailcloth. Salted pork.
Aldric followed the trail of debris up the coast. He found splintered planks, a shattered mast, and tangles of thick hemp rope.
Then, wedged between two relatively intact wine casks, he found the boy.
He was young, perhaps fourteen, with mop of brown hair plastered to his pale face. He was unconscious, his chest rising in shallow, ragged jerks, tied to the barrels with a thick length of rope.
Kevin Turner was the second son of a knightly house from the Fingers.
His family, House Turner, had earned their spurs during the Blackfyre Rebellions. They were sworn to House Coldwater of Coldwater Burn, who were sworn to House Royce of Runestone, who were sworn to House Arryn of the Eyrie, who answered to King Robert in King's Landing.
It was a long chain of fealty, and Kevin's father, Ser John Turner, sat at the very bottom.
Ser John managed Splitwater, a miserable, wind-battered fishing village of barely a hundred souls. He was a hard man, born to the salty breeze, knighted at twenty-five, inheriting his father's meager keep at thirty-seven.
Such was the fate of minor houses. The firstborn inherited the keep, the responsibility, and the ancestral armor. The second sons took a horse, a sword, and whatever coin their father could spare, and rode off to seek their fortunes.
Kevin's generation was no exception.
His older brother, Lannor, was five years his senior. In Kevin's small world, his father, the Sworn Shield of Splitwater, was the greatest hero alive. Lannor was the second. And Kevin believed he was the third.
When Kevin was no taller than a table, he shadowed his brother everywhere. He swung a blunt wooden sword his father had carved, charging at haystacks, screaming, "For Coldwater Burn!"
During war games with the village children, Kevin always stood at Lannor's side. When Lannor charged, Kevin charged. When Lannor retreated, Kevin retreated.
Until one afternoon, playing in the mud. Lannor raised his stick and shouted, "I am Lannor Turner, Sworn Shield of Splitwater!"
Kevin raised his own stick. "I am Kevin Turner, Sworn Shield of Splitwater!"
Lannor turned and beat him senseless for the insult. When Kevin ran home crying to his father, Ser John beat him again.
That night, after a silent dinner, John Turner summoned both boys. He looked at Kevin with hard, unforgiving eyes.
"Kevin," his father said slowly. "There is only one Sworn Shield of Splitwater. That is me. When I die, it will be your brother, Lannor. As for you... when you are of age, I will give you a sword and a horse. You will leave, and you will find your own honor."
Kevin had wanted to cry. Why? Am I not your son? Was I not born here? But he saw the stone in his father's jaw, and he swallowed his tears.
He was eight years old. Lannor was thirteen.
When Lannor turned thirteen, Ser John spent ten golden dragons to squire him to a landed knight—an old comrade-in-arms. Lannor rode away, and Kevin knew definitively that he would never inherit the village.
A year later, on his fourteenth name day, Ser John kept his promise. He handed Kevin a cheap steel sword, a wooden shield, and a lean, swaybacked horse. He then entrusted the boy to his uncle, who had just returned from Essos for a rare visit.
As they rode out of Splitwater, the village shrinking in the distance, his uncle looked at him.
"Do you hate your father, boy?"
Kevin glared at the road. "Do you? Do you hate grandfather?"
His uncle threw his head back and laughed, the thick, twisting scar on his cheek writhing like a pale worm.
"You little brat! I hate everyone, but I'd never hate your grandfather! You think being the Sworn Shield of a dung-heap village is a prize? Let me tell you a secret, boy. I've killed more anointed knights in the dirt than you have fingers and toes! The taxes your father scrapes together in a year wouldn't buy a decent night of drinking and whoring in the Free Cities!"
His uncle was Thomas Turner. He was a veteran sellsword of the Second Sons, having bled for the company for twenty-one years.
The Second Sons were a legendary free company operating in Essos, comprised mostly of Westerosi second sons who stood to inherit nothing but their names. Thomas loved to boast that even the Red Viper of Dorne had once ridden with them.
Thomas had escorted a Magister to King's Landing and decided to visit the Fingers before his leave expired. He had found his brother agonizing over Kevin's future—debating whether to apprentice the boy to a glover or beg the Coldwater watch for a spot on the wall.
Over roasted mutton and sour wine, Thomas had looked at his nephew.
"The lad is sturdy," Thomas had noted.
"Mm," Ser John grunted.
"Sturdier than Lannor."
Ser John didn't argue. "You were always sturdier than me, too."
"Let him come with me," Thomas offered. "Better to bleed for gold in the Free Cities than weather into sea-jerky on this rock."
And so, Kevin rode for White Harbor.
All along the Kingsroad, Thomas filled the boy's head with tales of sellsword glory.
"You'll start as a camp follower, sure," Thomas promised. "But you're strong. Work hard, keep your head down, and you'll earn your place in the line. Food, pay, and brotherhood. Don't drink your wages. I'll hold them for you. When we save enough, I'll take you to the finest smith in Pentos. We'll buy you plate armor that will make the lords of the Vale weep with envy."
Thomas slapped his own dented breastplate. "Better than this. Better than your brother's."
"That's not Lanny's armor," Kevin mumbled. "It's father's."
"Same thing. It was grandfather's before that. Rusted junk."
Armor better than the ancestral chainmail. Kevin couldn't even picture it.
Lost in visions of shining steel and Essosi gold, Kevin had slowly forgotten the sorrow of leaving home. By the time he smiled, Splitwater was far behind him, lost in the mist.