ASOIAF : Creed

Sleep would not come. Jon lay on the hard cot, his mind too restless for peace, his body aching with exhaustion.

The small, stone room felt like a cage, the walls pressing in. He needed air. He rose, his movements silent on the rough floorboards, and slipped out into the courtyard of Castle Black.

The air was so cold it was like breathing in needles, but it helped to clear his head. The Wall loomed over him, a mountain of ancient ice that seemed to drink the starlight from the sky. The castle was silent and still. He stood in the center of the yard, a lone figure in the darkness, and did what was now second nature to him. He activated The Sight.

The world bled into its familiar shades of grey. He saw the faint, sleeping blue auras of the men in the barracks, the steady orange of the lone guard on the Wall lift. It was all as it should be. He was about to deactivate the vision when he saw it.

It was a trail, but unlike any he had seen before. It wasn't the murky orange of a thief or the hostile red of an enemy. It was a shimmering, pale blue, like the color of ice deep within a glacier. It seemed to leach the very warmth from the air around it, and it left faint, frozen footprints on the stone that were not visible to the naked eye. The System's text flickered into view, cold and clinical.

[Intent: Unnatural]

The trail led from the storeroom where they had placed the bodies of the dead rangers, Othor and Jafer Flowers. It moved with a strange, dragging gait across the courtyard, straight towards the King's Tower, where the Lord Commander slept.

A cold dread, far deeper than the night's chill, seized Jon.

He moved, his feet silent on the frozen ground, his new longsword a comforting weight in his hand. He followed the trail to the base of the tower. The guard who should have been stationed there was gone. The door was slightly ajar. Jon slipped inside.

The guard lay sprawled on the first landing of the winding stairs, his neck twisted at an impossible angle, his eyes wide with a silent, frozen scream. There was no blood. Jon's heart hammered against his ribs. He continued up the stairs, his senses screaming, his hand gripping the wolf's-head pommel of his sword so tightly his knuckles were white.

The trail led directly to the Lord Commander's chambers. The door was closed, but from within, he could hear a faint, rhythmic scrape… scrape… scrape…

He pushed the door open. The room was lit only by the dying embers in the hearth. Lord Commander Mormont was asleep in his bed, a heavy fur pulled up to his chin. And moving with a slow, deliberate shuffle towards the bed was the corpse of the ranger, Othor. His skin was pale and waxy in the dim light, his movements stiff and unnatural. But it was his eyes that made Jon's blood run cold. They were open, and they glowed with a brilliant blue light.

Mormont's raven, perched on a stand near the bed, let out a frantic, terrified squawk. It launched itself at the dead man, beating its black wings against his face. The corpse paid it no mind. It raised a hand, its fingers curled into a claw, and continued its silent, inexorable advance on the sleeping Lord Commander.

Jon didn't think. He acted. He lunged into the room, his sword a blur of motion. He brought the blade down on the wight's outstretched arm, severing it at the elbow.

But the creature did not scream. It did not bleed. It simply turned its head, its glowing blue eyes fixing on Jon, and kept moving. The severed hand, lying on the floor, began to twitch and crawl on its own, like a pale, monstrous spider.

The sheer, unnatural horror of it almost made Jon freeze. This was not a man. This was a puppet of death, like the one from Old Nan's stories. He slashed again, his blade cutting deep into the wight's chest, a blow that would have killed any living man. The wight barely seemed to notice. It swung its remaining arm, its dead flesh impossibly strong, and knocked Jon off his feet. His sword clattered away across the stone floor.

The corpse stood over him, its blue eyes burning, its hand reaching for his throat. He was going to die.

"Burn!" a harsh voice screeched. "Burn! Burn!"

Mormont's raven was flapping wildly on its perch. The Lord Commander himself was awake now, scrambling from his bed, his eyes wide with disbelief as he fumbled for the oil lamp on his bedside table.

The lamp. Fire.

It was a desperate, insane gamble. As the corpse lunged for him, Jon scrambled backwards, his hand closing around the cool metal base of the lamp. He didn't hesitate. He threw it. The lamp shattered against the wight's chest, dousing its black cloak in oil. The embers from the hearth did the rest.

The wight went up in a sudden, roaring column of flame. For the first time, it made a sound—a high, thin, unearthly shriek that was not human. It thrashed in the fire, a burning scarecrow of black rags and blue eyes, before finally collapsing into a heap of smoldering, foul-smelling ash.

Jon lay on the floor, his chest heaving, the smell of burnt flesh and oil thick in the air. He stared at the smoldering remains, his mind struggling to process what had just happened. A series of notifications appeared, their text a cold, final confirmation of the nightmare he had just faced.

[Supernatural Threat Identified: Wight]

[Creature Analysis: Animated by unknown necromantic energy. Immune to conventional weaponry. Vulnerable to: Fire, Obsidian (Dragonglass).]

[Tier I Awakening Triggered: The Blood Stirs]

[New Skill Unlocked: Cold Resistance]

[New Skill Unlocked: Wolf-Dream]

[Reward: 1000 Experience]

[New Main Quest Issued: The War for the Dawn]

Objective: The Others have returned. The Long Night is coming. Prepare yourself to fight the darkness.

Reward: The Salvation of the Living, ???

He looked up at the Lord Commander, who stood there in his nightshirt, his face pale with shock, staring at the ashes on his floor.

"What in the seven hells was that?" Mormont growled, the question more a horrified whisper to himself than an inquiry.

"I do not know, Lord Commander," Jon lied, his voice steady despite the adrenaline coursing through him.

Just as the words left his lips, a series of terrified screams erupted from the courtyard below, followed by the clash of steel. Mormont's head snapped up, his eyes wide with alarm. "The other one," he snarled.

Jon moved with a swiftly grabbing his sword as he exited the room, Mormont close behind him. The scene in the common barracks was one of pure chaos. Men were scrambling from their bunks, their faces masks of terror in the flickering torchlight.

In the center of the room, the corpse of Jafer Flowers had been hacked to pieces by the first men to react, but the parts were still moving. An arm crawled across the floor, while the torso swiped blindly with a broken sword.

The men were screaming, their blows doing nothing. Jon, seeing the panic, acted with a calm. "The fire!" he yelled, his voice cutting through the noise. "Get it in the hearth!"

Not wanting to take a chance, he and a few men who rallied to his voice used spear shafts and benches to push the still-writhing pieces of the dead man into the great hearth at the end of the hall. The fire roared, and a final, unearthly shriek echoed through the room.

When it was over, a stunned, terrified silence fell. Lord Commander Mormont stood amidst the carnage, his face a mask of cold, hard fury as he looked at the dead brothers on the floor and the scared, witless faces of the survivors.