Asking Jorah, he mentioned that he also wanted to use Red Rain himself, but Jeor was firm and said that he could, at most, do the same as him and lend the sword to another while watching from afar.
Reluctantly, Jeor accepts and joins the group. Overhearing everything, Maege joins them as well.
Then, borrowing twenty knights from Luthor Tyrell and giving Red Rain to Ser Edmund Bushy, the most skilled among them according to the Lord of the Reach himself, the group begins their march toward the clash between the drowned god and the faceless men.
On the way, Alaric uses his two remaining Enhance Ability charges on Rickard and Gerold Hightower, increasing the agility of both by two.
Gerold became a bit alert at the green particles heading toward him, but having heard Alaric's explanation and Rickard's affirmation of safety, he resisted his instincts telling him to retreat.
With that, he had only two 1st-level Cure Wounds left. Seeing that both had already lost hit points, Alaric uses the spells on them.
With that, he was completely tapped out.
Fortunately, the more than one thousand Drowned dead thanks to his Daylights, which were worth ten to thirty each, earned him thousands of experience points in total.
Exp: 36,122 / 14,000
Aware that he was throwing a free health recovery in the trash, Alaric nevertheless presses the option to level up; resolute.
The whole world stops. Frozen.
Gerold, Rickard, Jorah, Maege, the knights of the Reach, and himself. All frozen in the form they were in while running toward the drowned god, but only he was still conscious.
This was the third time this had happened, and he knew very well what it meant: a mandatory choice.
And looking at the green panel that appeared in front of him upon selecting the level-up option, he finds a familiar sight.
In front of him, the system panel displayed his current ability points while offering the option to increase one of them by two or two of them by one.
Choosing to stick to the plan formed almost two months ago, he mentally places the two points into Dexterity, raising it to 14.
Selecting 'confirm' with his mind, time resumes and Alaric, forgetting to keep running, stumbles and almost falls from the abrupt stop.
"Don't go knocking yourself out before the fight, boy!" Maege jokes, trying to lighten the heavy mood.
Alaric answers her with a grunt while observing his new status.
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Name: Alaric Mormont(12)
HP: 44 / 44
Sex: Masculine
Race: Human of the First Men
Class: Druid (Circle of the Moon)
Level: 8
Exp: 36,122 / 48,000
Ability Scores
Strength: 8
Dexterity: 14
Constitution: 9
Intelligence: 13
Wisdom: 14
Charisma: 9
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'I jumped three levels at once... I thought I could go up one at a time. Damn.'
A misfortune. But it was spilled milk. He had no time to lament.
Closing the status window, Alaric focuses back on the form of the drowned god, which grew larger with every step.
This was just in time to see the scene of the god finally managing to hit one of the faceless men, sending him flying.
With the drowned god walking toward the man's motionless body, it seemed that this was his end, making Alaric and the others think they were too late.
But as if by divine intervention, a lightning bolt rips through the sky and hits the form of the drowned god, causing it to let out a guttural scream that was audible to everyone within a radius of hundreds of meters.
Momentarily paralyzed, the faceless man manages to get up and move away from it.
HP: 520 / 615. 31 hit points were lost because of the lightning.
"What the fuck?" Maege screams, also shocked. "How... Is that a cloud above him?"
She was referring to a singular cloud three meters high and 18 meters in radius, hovering about 50 meters above the drowned god's head.
Not only was it strange, impossible, for there to be a cloud at such a low level, but there were also none around it. It was alone.
"It's helping us, so it doesn't matter! Keep running!" Gerold shouts, accelerating his pace as fast as possible in his armor.
Unbeknownst to all of them, flying above the cloud was a Giant Eagle, and sitting on its back was a being of short stature with skin that resembled wood.
He observed everyone but gave special focus to Alaric.
During the remaining 200 meters to the drowned god, another lightning bolt descends from the cloud hovering above the battlefield and hits the drowned god again, saving the life of another faceless man and causing another 28 hit points to be lost, making his HP drop to 473.
"Here is enough!" Alaric says, being twenty-five meters away from the avatar of the god.
Understanding the signal, Gerold unsheathes Longclaw and begins the commands.
First to the men of the Reach, explaining that they should spread out around the monster and, when necessary and possible, drag those men away from it and wait for Alaric; or bring them to him if possible.
Meanwhile, Alaric was kneeling with his eyes closed. To the others who did not know how his magic worked, they thought he was praying, when in fact he was preparing spells, since they were reset upon leveling up.
Hearing the command, the knights are confused as to why they should take the faceless men to Alaric, but they simply accept and move away. Leaving only Rickard, Gerold, Edmund Bushy, and the Mormonts, who were in front of the kneeling Alaric, acting as his guard.
At the same moment the knights depart, the cloud hovering over the drowned god spits another lightning bolt.
HP: 427 / 615. 37 lost. The largest so far.
This third one was the final straw for the avatar of the drowned god, who looked up, pointed at the cloud, and spoke with his deep, dragging, and hoarse voice, "Dispel."
And just like that, the cloud vanished.
Or only visually simple, since he lost yet another spell.
"Lord Stark, Lord Bushy," Gerold calls them by name and sighs. "It is our time."
Neither of the lords speaks, only nodding their heads and unsheathing their swords, Ice and Red Rain.
"Wait!" Alaric says, opening his eyes and standing up. "The magic I placed on you will help dodge attacks, but it won't make you equal to those three, so take these reinforcements. It will take a minute."
Under confused looks, Alaric opens his arms as if waiting for a hug. The somatic component.
Then, with arms still open, he begins to speak Druidic, generating sounds of water turning into steam, mud being stepped on, and water being poured.
Exactly one minute later, eight creatures appear out of nowhere and begin to fly around Alaric, observing him.
"What the fuck?" Maege screams.
They had pale skin, almost transparent, which exhaled steam. Their wings were short but still capable enough to sustain their small, thin bodies in the air with their beats.
They had comically long and pointed noses, ears, and heads. They had naturally curved spines, unable to stand upright. Their legs had the same structure as a cat's; with the stifle, which functions like the human knee, and the hock, the joint that bends backward. And at the tips of their fingers, both hands and feet, were sharp claws.
These beings were called Steam Mephits by the system, and Alaric summoned them using his newest spell acquired by leveling up three times at once: Conjure Minor Elemental.
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Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: 90 feet (27 meters)
Components: V, S
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour + Wis Modifier.
You summon elementals that appear in unoccupied spaces that you can see within range. You choose one of the following options for what appears:
One elemental of challenge rating 2 or lowerTwo elementals of challenge rating 1 or lowerFour elementals of challenge rating 1/2 or lowerEight elementals of challenge rating 1/4 or lower
An elemental summoned by this spell disappears when it drops to 0 hit points or when the spell ends. The summoned creatures are friendly to you and your companions. They obey any verbal commands that you issue to them. If you don't issue any commands to them, they defend themselves from hostile creatures, but otherwise take no actions.
At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using certain higher-level spell slots, you choose one of the summoning options above, and more creatures appear: twice as many with a 6th-level slot and three times as many with an 8th-level slot.
-
It was a complex and powerful magic.
Since the drowned god would be more powerful than any single elemental he could summon, Alaric chose to rely on numbers, hoping to distract it while the others attacked. Therefore, while casting the spell, he visualized the Steam Mephits from among the options the system had placed in his mind.
They weren't weak; they simply had low hit points.
-
Steam Mephit
HP: 21 / 21
Ability Scores
Strength: 5
Dexterity: 11
Constitution: 10
Intelligence: 11
Wisdom: 10
Charisma: 12
-
Decent stats, but with the ability to fly, exhale a breath of steam from a distance, and summon other Steam Mephits for one minute, they would be a headache for the drowned god.
Regardless, Rickard, Gerold, and Edmund didn't know that.
"Be not afraid," Alaric says, seeing the fear on the faces of the three warriors about to fight a god. "They will help you with the drowned god. Just be careful not to be around them when one of them dies."
Glancing at the drowned god in the distance, Alaric finds the deity already staring at him, having sensed him nearby when the young bear used the conjuration magic. Without waiting any longer, Alaric points at the god and commands: "Attack."
With that simple word, the eight Steam Mephits fly toward the god with smiles on their faces, under the astonished gaze of the three warriors and the Mormonts.
"You can go now—WATCH OUT!"
Alaric interrupts himself to warn of the danger as he sees the drowned god raising a hand toward him and whispering something. It was obvious he was casting a spell in his direction. Seeing a red sphere expelled from the god's palm flying toward him, Alaric runs to his right, dragging Jorah, who was closest to him, along.
The others copy him but move in different directions. Unfortunately, their reaction time, even with Alaric's warning, was not fast enough for some of them. Traveling the twenty-meter distance at high speed, the ball of red light hits the ground where everyone stood, exploding and spreading its light in a six-meter radius.
Within this radius were Jeor, Maege, and Edmund, who, upon being hit by the light, fell unconscious to the ground.
"Father!" Jorah screams, breaking free from his younger brother's grip and running toward his father.
He wasn't dead. Neither he nor the other two. Alaric had instantly checked. They hadn't even lost hit points. They were simply sleeping. That magic wasn't the destructive type.
It made sense. When the Ironborn invaded Bear Island, they didn't talk about killing him, but rather capturing and sacrificing him. Whatever that sacrifice and ritual involved, the drowned god needed him alive.
"Take them and get back!" Gerold shouts, looking at the drowned god walking toward them with hurried steps while waving his arms to ward off the harassing Steam Mephits. "Lord Rickard, by the Old and the New!"
"By the Old and the New!"
Shouting in unison, both charge with swords raised, ready to die fighting.
Left behind, Alaric and Jorah tried to drag the unconscious bodies, but since the three were fully grown adults—with the addition of Edmund wearing full plate armor—dragging them was extremely difficult for the two teenagers.
Realizing how futile it was, Alaric let go of the unconscious bodies of his father and Edmund, drawing a confused look from Jorah.
"What are you doing?"
"Luring him away," he says, picking up Red Rain from the ground.
Without further explanation, Alaric begins to run to the right, leaving a shocked Jorah behind with the three unconscious forms.
Running while facing the drowned god, Alaric could see the deity following him with his gaze and altering his direction toward him, just as he could see the moment Ser Gerold Hightower and Lord Rickard Stark finally reached the god and attacked his legs.
Luckily, the drowned god was too distracted by the Steam Mephits flying around his head—trying to sink their claws into his eyes and breathing steam into his face, blinding him momentarily—to kick them.
However, Gerold and Rickard's attacks managed to take only four and three health from him, respectively. They couldn't even make him stop.
As for the three faceless men, they had been left behind a while ago and were now all in the arms of the knights of the Reach, nearly fainting from exhaustion.
Looking at the drowned god 'running' after him, Alaric keeps moving, staying away while running in a circle around him. Fortunately, his new dexterity of fourteen allowed him to maintain a fast and comfortable enough pace to keep the god at a distance.
It was working, but he knew he couldn't keep going like that. Just like the three faceless men, he would tire before the drowned god was defeated.
Gerold, Rickard, and the Steam Mephits did the best they could, but in the two minutes Alaric spent running, they managed to take only 24 hit points from the god, reducing his health to 394.
Alaric tried to wound him with his Cantrip, Produce Flames, which had become enhanced when he reached level 5, allowing him to perform the somatic component with just one hand by rubbing his fingers, now dealing 2d8.
Since the fireball in his hand could only travel a distance of 9 meters before dissipating, he had to let the drowned god get close to hit him, only to deal four damage in the end; the god's fire resistance was too much for his Cantrip.
High risk, low reward. Something Gerold and Rickard made clear by telling him to just keep running.
The drowned god hadn't even lost half of his health and was becoming increasingly impatient, which led him to launch another red sphere in Alaric's direction. Aimed at where Alaric was heading rather than where he was, Alaric managed to dodge the blast field by a hair, needing to jump at the last minute to escape.
Despair and anger began to take hold of Alaric.
"What are you waiting for? Do something!" he screams, looking at the sky above his head and the eagle flying there, hovering constantly over him like a vulture.
Alaric wasn't stupid. He knew that cloud, summoned by the Call Lightning spell, was not the work of the faceless men. If they had something like that up their sleeve, they would have used it sooner, or used it more, instead of standing still watching the scene of him running.
And if it wasn't the faceless men, only one other group remained in Alaric's mind.
"I won't leave! I won't run! So you better do something before he catches me!"
For a while, nothing.
Everyone watching the scene was confused by the screams, some thinking he had gone mad. Jorah, desperate and unable to imagine his younger brother coming out of that situation alive, slapped the faces of his family members while shouting their names, trying to wake them.
It worked, to his surprise.
Then, under the watchful gaze of the knights of the Reach, of Edmund Bushy—who was running toward him, shouting to have the sword back—and of his family, who were screaming for him to flee while also running toward him, Alaric shouts once more:
"I won't leave—"
He stops mid-shout as he sees three giant spiders fall from the sky and surround the drowned god.
Then, to the shock of everyone, the spiders launch webs at the drowned god's legs, paralyzing him.
Looking up at where the spiders fell from, Alaric finds not only the underside of the eagle but also a head leaning over from its back, looking down at him.
A head with skin that looked like wood and leaves tucked into the hair. And eyes that stared at him with irritation.
Garoa, the Child of the Forest.
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