The Night's Watch members cleared the kitchen of Nighfort, unsure how deep the secret passage was. They piled supplies on the ground, starting to calculate how much they would need to bring inside.
"No need for torches or fire oil; I'll use magic to provide light," Wright said, noticing them preparing torches. If there were still spider webs inside, they might catch fire and ignite the entire passage, leaving them with no way to escape.
Hearing this, the others relaxed and discarded the torches, bringing more food supplies instead.
Wright, Robb, and Waymar stood by the well, watching as the light from Wright's magic slowly descended to the bottom.
"Good thing the bottom isn't blocked by ice," Waymar said, leaning over the well.
"If it were blocked, there wouldn't have been so many little spiders coming up," Robb observed, seeing many spider corpses at the bottom, burned by the fire.
"I'll go first." Wright leaped into the well, landing with a thud at the bottom. The well was about fifteen meters deep, and Wright examined the dry, frozen soil at the bottom. It seemed this well had never been meant for drawing water.
Wright spotted a few white shapes moving in the cracks of the well walls. He looked up and shouted, "Get back!"
The heads by the well recoiled, and suddenly, a roar of flames erupted from the well. They heard the popping sound of small spiders exploding as the flames heated them.
Soon, the flames died down, and an ice staircase began to grow from the well walls, reaching all the way to the bottom.
"Being a mage sure makes things convenient!" Waymar said, walking over with a bundle of rope.
"Most mages wouldn't waste magic like that," Robb replied, about to descend the well when his direwolf, Greywind, bit his pants.
"You want to go down too? Fine, I'll splurge and use magic to lower you," Robb said, patting Greywind's head and carefully stepping down the ice stairs.
The spider webs at the bottom of the well were burnt away, and a white Weirwood door appeared in front of Wright, with a wrinkled human face carved into it. The bottom of the door had a fist-sized hole, and small spiders had crawled out through this opening.
The small spiders could get through, but humans would need to open the door. Wright placed his hand on the face of the door without immediately forcing it open, as he sensed through his magic that this was a magical item, possibly as ancient as the Wall itself. Wright worried that it might be connected to the magic circle beneath the Wall. Over time, due to disrepair, the door had lost all magical energy.
He infused a tiny amount of magic and carefully felt for the ancient and intricate magic array inside the door.
After a while, Robb, Greywind, and Waymar reached the bottom. The white door began to emit a faint glow, and the carved human face opened its eyes. The eyes, also made of Weirwood, didn't look at any of them but instead spoke:
"Who are you?" The language was an ancient tongue used by the First Men.
Fortunately, Wright had learned some of this language from the Children of the Forest. "I am Wright Baratheon."
Cold wind rushed in from above, but Wright kept his hand on the door, which still didn't react.
"Voice control? A password? Robb, Waymar, think of something," Wright said, looking at them.
Robb thought for a moment. "Legend says that the Wall was built by Brandon the Builder. Maybe as a Stark, I'll have a chance."
Wright withdrew his magic and infused it again. The door spoke once more, "Who are you?"
"I am Robb Stark." Robb answered, using the Old Tongue he'd learned in King's Landing, hoping it would work.
The door still didn't respond. It seemed the Stark bloodline alone couldn't open it.
The Wall, the door, the secret passage, the users—Wright thought carefully for a moment and then called Waymar over. After teaching him a few words of the ancient tongue, Wright infused magic again.
"Who are you?"
Waymar stammered, "I am Waymar Royce. I am a member of the Night's Watch!"
This time, the door reacted. A flash of white light blinked, but the door still didn't open.
Through his magic, Wright sensed that the magic array inside the door had just started to move. He also noticed patterns in the array that seemed to identify living beings. When Waymar spoke, some runes appeared on the array, but it wasn't fully aligned yet—it seemed that a longer sentence was needed.
"Waymar, does the Night's Watch have any phrases that have been passed down from ancient times?" Wright asked, looking back at him.
Waymar thought for a moment. "Yes, the Night's Watch oath has never changed."
"Robb, help him translate the oath into the Old Tongue, one line at a time," Wright instructed. He kept focusing on the door, making a mental note of its runes. This was a useful discovery—voice-controlled doors! For now, he would remember the spellwork and study it further later.
Under the watchful eyes of the Night's Watch brothers above, Waymar stumbled through the Old Tongue version of the Night's Watch oath until he recited:
"I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men."
"Go!" The wooden door finally spoke its second sentence. The carved face on the door began to open its lips, widening more and more until the door turned into a large mouth, wide enough for a person to pass through.
"It's done!" Waymar said in surprise, looking at the changing wooden door.
Several magical light orbs flew from Wright's hand and entered the secret passage. The glowing orbs didn't stick to the walls; instead, they were caught in spider webs, hanging from the ceiling, swaying.
Wright placed his hand on the spider web. Through the high magical conductivity of the web, he immediately sensed the shape of the underground tunnel.
The passage was two meters wide and two meters tall, running straight beneath the Wall, with the exit about a kilometer outside the Wall in the Haunted forest. This was the original design of the passage.
At the base of the Wall, there was a magical barrier to prevent undead from entering. Beyond the Wall in the Haunted forest, the walls were riddled with numerous holes, leading to a maze-like network of tunnels stretching for several kilometers underground, much like a massive underground castle.
Through the connected spider silk, Wright also sensed many giant white spiders. They were magical creatures!
Hiss~~~ The spiders, highly sensitive to the silk, also sensed Wright. Having their nest discovered, the ice spiders opened their mouths and shrieked.
"Damn it!" Wright swore loudly.
"There really are ice spiders the size of horses! Night's Watch, hold the entrance! Waymar, you go up too! Your current gear won't be enough to deal with this," Wright yelled, ordering them to leave.
The underground cave was the spider's nest. They could crawl on the ceiling, walls, and webs. The Night's Watch's obsidian daggers might be able to deal with them, but in this terrain, they would only be walking to their deaths. It was faster for Wright to set fire to it alone.
"Ice spiders? I'll help you, teacher!" Robb said, taking his ice blade in hand, eager to jump in.
Even with a magical shield, Robb couldn't burn them, but Wright allowed him, "Does Greywind want to go in too? That fur of his won't last a second."
"We've never been apart, and I can cast magic on him now," Robb said, raising his fists. Yellow light enveloped both him and Greywind, forming a protective magical shield.
"Bran teach you that?" Wright asked. That magic wasn't from Wright himself.
"Maybe it's more accurate to say it was from the Three-Eyed Raven," Robb said, thinking back to when Bran spoke in such a cryptic, old-man-like way. With Wright mentioning Bran's magical legacy, Robb knew his brother didn't have that ability.
Wright drew his greatsword and said, "That Three-Eyed Raven bastard! Vampires everywhere, and now ice spiders nesting beneath the Wall! Not even a letter from him!"
Robb smiled sheepishly, not daring to respond. Wright was probably the only one in the whole continent who dared speak ill of the Three-Eyed Raven.
From communication with Leaf and the others, all magic users knew the Three-Eyed Raven was someone who could see through time. Important figures wouldn't mind much, so cursing him wouldn't be a danger to one's life, but who knows? Maybe one day, while eating, an unnoticed raven might sneak a cockroach into their bread.
"Robb, get ready. Everyone above, stay back. I'm setting fire to it!" Wright shouted, preparing to set the well on fire once again.
He couldn't destroy the fish-wood door, so he used a transformation spell to cover it, also shielding Robb and Greywind, then flicked a spark of fire onto the spider web.
Buzz~~~
The flames quickly spread along the dense spider webs, transforming from a small spark into a blazing fire, which shot up from the entrance, roaring throughout the passage. Wright quickly used magic to seal it. On the other side of the Wall, in the Haunted forest, the thick snow-covered ground suddenly erupted with flames higher than the trees, a stone slab being blasted to the height of the Wall before falling down.
The fire came quickly and left just as fast. The spider silk was soon burned away.
"Robb, follow me in!" Wright shouted, drawing his greatsword and charging into the blazing passage.
"Waymar, keep watch here! If anything other than Wright and me comes out, kill it!" Robb ordered, leading Greywind into the passage.
The pitch-black tunnel was illuminated by the magical light orbs. Wright reached the entrance of the spider-made cave, already covered in various defensive spells. His previous experience of entering a cave in the ruins of Valyria hadn't been pleasant—there, the structure was artificial; here, it was a spider-dug dirt cave. Wright wasn't eager to be caught off guard in such a place.
"This is it, Robb, I'll go ahead, you follow me!"
The tunnel floor was paved with stone slabs. As Wright stepped into the side tunnel, he felt the ground beneath his feet was solid earth.
The two men and one wolf entered the cave, which branched off in all directions. Wright's magical detection couldn't cover it all, so to avoid getting lost, they decided to follow the leftmost tunnel.
Crack! The sound of the leg armor hitting the ground was unusual, and when Wright looked down, he saw a pile of shattered ice crystals.
Robb picked up a piece, inspecting it closely before sniffing it. He and Greywind were in a heightened state of connection, and his senses were unusually sharp. "This is a newly dug cave, there shouldn't be any ice here. The ice crystals still have residual magical energy that hasn't dissipated."
"It must be the remains of the ice spiders. Look at the wall ahead," Wright said, pointing his sword toward the cave ahead.
The caves they had passed through earlier were burned by flames, with all the webs burned away, leaving smooth walls. But ahead, the cave was covered with webs.
"To avoid getting burned, these spiders must have cut off the webs and died here," Wright kicked a large piece of ice crystal, raised his hand, and hurled a fireball at the web-covered wall.
The fireball exploded, but the flames dissipated, and the webs were not ignited.
"Can't ignite them?" Wright walked closer to the webs, inspecting them closely. He noticed that from this point onward, every web was coated in a layer of light yellowish slime. It was this slime, infused with faint magical energy, that prevented the flames from spreading.
"It seems these ice spiders knew that their webs are vulnerable to fire. No wonder they've survived this long—they've figured out countermeasures," Wright said as he and Robb continued deeper into the cave. With each step, the disgusting sound of squelching slime echoed beneath their feet. Greywind was especially restless, as its four paws were covered in the yellowish goo, and Robb frowned in discomfort.
"My badge is vibrating! Magic creatures are approaching," Robb took a battle stance.
"Don't worry, I sensed it too. It's likely ice spiders. They're moving in the tunnel ahead, seems like they're transporting something. They're not coming toward us," Wright didn't stop walking, continuing to squelch through the goo.
He twirled his giant sword, slashing it into the right wall as he slowly turned his head.
Hisssss…
On the wall covered in yellowish slime, a spider the size of a human was impaled by the giant sword. Its body was also covered in the yellow slime, curled up with its eight legs, blending into the wall.
But Wright's magical detection could clearly see it, even before they reached this part of the tunnel. At first, he thought it was just resting due to injury, but as they drew closer, he tested its resilience with a sword strike.
"Damn, it's that big!" Robb was startled by the enormous creature, his first time seeing an ice spider as large as the legends described.
The giant sword stabbed into the spider's back, and its long legs struggled in vain, tearing apart all the webs around it. Some ice shards exploded from its shell, ricocheting off Wright's dragonbone armor with a clinking sound. The spider began spewing webs from its abdomen, wrapping Wright in a massive cocoon of white threads within seconds, but the giant sword remained lodged in its body, unmoving.
"Its strength is a bit more than a horse, with a large spinneret at the end of its abdomen, making its webs extremely tough. It has venomous fangs, and can lift its front four legs to attack, with a range of about four meters. A normal human should only attack from a distance. Never get close to it in combat," Wright analyzed.
Flames erupted from Wright's body, and the webs instantly burned away. The fire spread along his arms to the giant sword, and soon, the fire reached the spider's body and began to burn from the inside out. Wright silently counted the seconds.
Fwoosh! The spider exploded with a sound like a fart, its innards splattering all over Wright and Robb. Within less than a second, the flesh and blood quickly froze into sparkling ice that fell to the ground.
"Ten seconds! Level one fire magic takes ten seconds to kill them from the inside. If it's burned on the outside, the shell and the ice magic slow it down. A basic fire spell would need to burn for at least thirty seconds on the exterior. Not very promising," Wright explained to Robb as he wiped the ice shards off his armor.
"Two-thirds of the wizards in the Seven Kingdoms can only cast level-one magic. But with alchemy and magical arrays, we should be able to deal with them," Robb assessed his own abilities, confident that he could handle the creature.
"Numbers," Wright muttered.
Before the last ice spider died, it let out a shrill scream, and Wright sensed more ice spiders moving toward them. He turned and said, "I need to assess their reproduction speed! There are two paths ahead. Robb, take the right path. The caves converge at the next junction. I'll be waiting for you there."
"Ha!" As soon as he finished speaking, a red sword aura flew out, and Wright dashed toward the left tunnel.
"Greywind! This is our first real battle together, stop worrying about the slime on your paws. Let's get to the junction first!" Robb patted Greywind's head.
The wolf's sense of smell was incredibly sharp, and after forming a telepathic link with it, Robb couldn't shake the foul stench that filled his nostrils. Wolves had a different tolerance for smells—while they found rotting corpses to be a potential meal, it nearly knocked Robb unconscious.
"Let's go!" Robb and Greywind rushed toward the right cave, the cold ice sword glowing with a red hue that extended further with each step.