Chapter 416 Postscript (2)

Two hundred years after the appearance of the Long Night, the Long Night finally ended, but the eternal winter did not end because of the disappearance of the Long Night. Westeros and Essos were still covered in ice and snow, and the cold wind blowing from the north was enough to Freeze everything.

It was not until a hundred years later that the eternal winter eased. The most obvious point was that the southern coastline of the Essos continent such as Slaver's Bay and Volantis became suitable for human habitation again. The old towns of Westeros and southern Dorne It's no longer extremely cold.

Therefore, in the past ten years, not only the Terran royal family has organized expedition teams to explore the continent of Westeros to understand the situation of the old continent and look for opportunities to return, but also the academic city, the Black Cave and various churches have also sent expeditions The team comes to explore the continent of Westeros.

The multi-masted clipper that now appears in the eyes of Bailey and others is an expedition ship organized by the Church of the Seven Gods.

"It's the Antler of the Baratheon family." Looking at the clipper ship in front of him that was pushed a little by the sea ice to the shore and ran aground, the captain of the expedition team quickly identified the origin of the ship from the unique bow portrait. , said: "This is a clipper specially customized by Duke Robert Baratheon from Dawei Shipyard for Master Kerry Baratheon to come of age. Later, Master Kree was invited to join the expedition organized by the Church of the Seven Gods. , eventually disappeared in the Old Continent. Duke Robert has been offering a large reward to find his whereabouts. I didn’t expect that we were so lucky. We saw this ship just after arriving in the Old Continent. Maybe we can get Duke Robert this time. That bounty.”

"It's impossible to find Master Kerry with this ship alone." An old sailor looked around and said: "This is not the docking point of the Antler River. The Antler River should be docked in the waters further north. We are now in Crab At the top of the Claw Peninsula, judging by its location, the ship probably docked along the valley and was then pushed here by the tide and ran aground.”

"Valley?" The captain thought for a moment and asked, "If we go to the valley..."

Someone immediately reminded: "Sir, our purpose is to build a forward camp and see if we can explore King's Landing. We are not here to find Lord Kerry Baratheon."

After hearing this, the captain realized that he had thoughts that he shouldn't have, so he quickly changed his mind and returned to the journey. He did not mention the search for Kree Baratheon's whereabouts again, but divided the expedition into three as planned. Some built camps on the spot, some patrolled the surrounding area, and the remaining part formed an expedition team and headed towards the location of King's Landing until they explored King's Landing and then returned.

The expedition team used a sleigh pulled by a domesticated direwolf and consisted of a hundred Chosen Sons, ten Silent Sisters, ten Black Hole spellcasters, and ten Citadel Maesters, including Belial and Jon.

Although the expedition team has a map of Westeros, the topography here has been greatly changed due to hundreds of years of ice and snow cover. The most obvious change is that the coastline has been completely different, so their itinerary does not It didn’t go well and I lost my way on the first day.

Fortunately, before the blizzard arrived at night, one of the skinchangers among the Black Hollow spellcasters saw an ancient ruins from the air through his raven companion, giving them a shelter from the blizzard.

The group of people found a wall in the ruins that could block the wind. They took off the leather tent from the sled and set it up on the wall. Then they set up the iron stove and lit the firewood, causing the temperature inside the tent to rise rapidly and blocking the wind. The cold wind outside can freeze your bones.

While setting up the tent, the bachelors also began to explore the ruins in front of them. Belle was lucky enough to find a stone emblem that had been eroded by the wind from the wall of the ruins.

"White stripes and black wings, this should be Crow's Roost Castle." After comparing the badges with the Westeros aristocratic emblems in his mind, Bailey shouted loudly to a short bachelor not far away: " Maester Pavey, this is Crow's Nest, the ancestral home of your Staunton family."

The bachelor named Pavey was stunned for a moment, then walked quickly to Bailey's side. He looked up at the badge that Bailey was pointing at, with an excited look on his face.

Everyone present also gathered over to congratulate their companions.

Just like most of the old nobles who migrated from Westeros, the Staunton family has also declined to the point where they only have one noble title left, and their actual family wealth is not as good as that of ordinary small businessmen.

For example, Pawei Staunton voluntarily gave up everything to join the academy and became a bachelor simply because his family had too many children to support. Several of his brothers also joined the Night's Watch.

Now seeing the birthplace of his ancestors made him sigh for a moment.

"What a pity!" Suddenly a civilian bachelor in the crowd said with a hint of ridicule: "It's a pity that the old noble reward order motion in the parliament was not passed. Otherwise, you would now be Count Pavey."

Pawei's face became a little ugly when he heard this, and other companions also looked at the civilian bachelor with great dissatisfaction, feeling that the other party was too rude to say these words at this time.

When the climate began to warm up and exploration of the Old World began to take off, members of the Lannister family proposed a motion to reward the old nobles. The main content of the bill was to allow the declining old nobles to actively participate in the exploration of the Old World. Among them, as long as the old nobles find the territories of their ancestors, they will return those territories to the old nobles and grant them the corresponding titles.

This bill was naturally recognized by the old nobles, so they actively pushed for the bill to be passed in the parliament. However, in the end, it failed to pass the bill by ten votes. Some people thought that it was a member of the common people who was born to cause trouble, and some people thought that it was the royal family. It is caused by manipulation behind the scenes. After all, if the bill is passed, it will greatly damage the interests of the royal family.

For a long time, new nobles, old nobles, merchants, civilians, and other classes within the empire have always hated each other. Organizations such as the Academy will take the initiative to shut out these hatreds, but this approach is often just wishful thinking.

In response to the provocation of the civilian bachelor, Pawei seemed very calm and did not refute. He just smiled, looked at the family crest on the wall, and then returned to the tent.

The others didn't react much when they saw Pawei as the person involved, and they couldn't say much. They glared at the civilian bachelor who was looking for trouble and went about their own business.

Since the location of Crow's Roost Castle has been determined, using Crow's Roost Castle as the coordinates, it is much easier to find the next landmark, Dusk Valley Town.

As the commander-in-chief of the Night's Watch during the White Walker War, Stannis Baratheon's life story has naturally been studied by historians. Among them, his series of tactics and strategies during the Seven Civil War are also the focus of research. , among which Mugu Town is the key point.

Many people think that if Stannis Baratheon hadn't been too rigid in character and didn't know how to make allies, perhaps the Baratheon dynasty could have continued for another generation. After he annihilated Kevan Lannister in Duskendale, half of the Sitting on the Iron Throne.

Therefore, in all the documents that study Stannis, two battles are highlighted, one is the defense of Storm's End, and the other is the annihilation of Duskendale, and it is also recorded that Linde commemorated that battle. The soldiers who died in the battle erected a towering stone monument, and this towering stone monument is the landmark that the expedition team is now looking for.

The houses in Dusk Valley Town are originally low wooden houses, and even the castle is only a two-story wooden castle. Years of snow have already buried the houses and castles in the snow. From a distance, you can only see I saw a vast white field of snow.

But the Dusk Valley Town War Memorial Stone was only half buried, and the other half stuck out of the snow very abruptly. The stone could still be clearly seen even from a long distance away.

The expedition team rested at the stone monument for another night, but compared to the night at Crow's Roost, this night was obviously much more uncomfortable.

First of all, the whole snowfield is too empty. Only stone monuments can block some wind and snow, so it is not suitable for setting up a tent. We can only dig a snow pit underground and cover the tent on top of the snow pit to block the blizzard.

The second thing is that they were attacked by a pack of direwolves while sleeping until midnight.

Although the direwolves pulled by the expedition team are all domesticated direwolves from the Black Cave, and are much larger than normal direwolves, they are artificially domesticated after all, and their habits are more like dogs, in terms of fighting ability and hunting ability. In terms of killing skills, they are far inferior to those of wild direwolves.

Under the sneak attack of wild direwolves, more than a dozen domesticated direwolves were quickly killed and carried away. Only then did the Chosen Ones, who were alarmed, come to the rescue and drive away the direwolves, because it was dark night. , they don’t know how many direwolves there are. The only thing that is certain is that the number of direwolves should exceed the number of the expedition team, because each chosen son needs to fight four or five direwolves. Later, because of the Redemption Sister and Black With the addition of the Cave Caster, we were able to drive away the wild direwolves, otherwise there would have been casualties among the Chosen Ones.

And what's worse is that not long after the team set out on the road the next day, some skinchangers discovered that the direwolf that attacked them last night had not left, but was following them from a distance, seeming to have regarded them as prey, and this The number of direwolves is very large, and there are thousands of them at a rough count.

When the shapechangers first told everyone about the number of direwolves, many people thought it was impossible, because such a large number of direwolves must require a lot of food, and now the environment they saw along the way looked nothing like it. There is enough prey to support such a large group of direwolves.

However, this question was quickly answered. When they arrived at Rosby City a few days later, they discovered a huge herd of long-haired reindeer moving nearby, and the direwolves also moved their prey to reindeer that were easier to catch. The group let go of the expedition team.

This directly led to the expedition team not stopping at Rosby City, but continuing south overnight, rushing towards King's Landing City. The reason why they were in a hurry was not only to take advantage of the direwolf pack's distraction to stay away from the wolves. In addition, it was also because the legendary old King's Landing was so close, which made them extremely excited and wanted to reach the old King's Landing as soon as possible.

After traveling for a day and two nights, they finally arrived at the outskirts of King's Landing in the early morning of the next day. Here they could see the legendary Red Keep in the early morning sunlight, and they could see the legendary Baelor. The Great Cathedral shimmered in the light.

"King's Landing, we are back!" Looking at the scene in front of him, Jon Stark couldn't help but shouted with excitement.

"King's Landing, we're back!" Others couldn't help shouting excitedly.

The shouts spread far and wide, awakening the city of King's Landing that had been silent for three hundred years.

After the excitement, everyone ignored the exhaustion of traveling all night and drove their sleds towards King's Landing City. Soon they arrived outside the Dragon Gate of King's Landing City.

The entire Giant Dragon Gate was almost buried by the snow, leaving only the giant dragon stone sculpture on the top of the gate vaguely visible. If the dragons are like this, the situation of other city gates is probably similar.

Therefore, the expedition team did not waste time to check the situation of other city gates. Instead, they chose to build a ladder at the Dragon Gate, go directly up to the city wall, and climb over the wall into King's Landing City.

However, not everyone in the expedition team went to King's Landing to explore. Only the bachelor, the Sister of Redemption and a group of Chosen Sons entered it, including Belial and Jon.

The group of people quickly climbed over the city wall and came to the city. The most obvious landmark in front of them was the Dragon's Cave. Unfortunately, there were no dragons in the Dragon's Cave anymore, so there was not much value in exploring. They chose to go directly to the King's Avenue. Head to the Red Fort.

However, when they passed through the edge of Rhaenys Hills where the dragon's lair was located, Jon suddenly stopped and looked in the direction of the dragon's lair.

Everyone stopped because of Jon's abnormality, and Bailey asked in a deep voice: "Jon, what's wrong?"

"I feel like there's something wrong with Dragon's Lair?" Jon said with a puzzled look on his face.

"Something's wrong?" Everyone looked at Jon in confusion, and then someone suddenly said: "There is indeed something wrong. The ground of the dragon's lair is too clean."

As the words fell, everyone noticed that the snow on the dragon's cave was much thinner than other places, and it felt as if it had been cleaned recently.

Someone immediately made an association and said: "Dragon! The snow is blown away by the strong wind generated when the dragon's wings are fanned."

"How could it be a giant dragon?" Someone retorted: "As far as I know, the giant dragons are all in Dragon Mountain in the capital of God. They have never left, let alone come to such a far place."

At this time, someone reminded: "Don't forget, there is another giant dragon that is not on the list of dragons in Longshan."

The bachelor's mind was very sharp. After a little prompting, he understood the meaning and said, "Are you talking about the sacred dragon Diltos?"

Everyone immediately fell silent, and Bailey suddenly said: "Do you think His Majesty the God Emperor is still alive?"

No one answered immediately. After a while, someone said: "If His Majesty the God Emperor stayed here for a period of time, he would definitely leave some traces of his life. We might be able to find some clues in the Red Castle."

After hearing this, everyone couldn't hold back their excitement. They stopped thinking and rushed toward the Red Castle quickly.