Chapter 5 – An Unreliable Ally
[A middle-aged noble of some standing. His leg is injured. He hasn't eaten properly in a long time.]
[Estimated age: between 35 and 55.]
[He appears burdened with guilt and despair.]
[He…]
One notification after another flickered across Charles's vision.
By the fourth line, he was starting to wonder if he'd just chosen the worst possible ally.
[Someone was here not long ago.]
That last message floated by as Charles hesitated at the threshold.
The man before him was clearly in poor shape—pale, half-starved, with one leg at an odd angle.
And Charles wasn't looking for a burden.
"He's not exactly what I'd call reliable," Charles thought with a sigh. "Probably just wasting my time."
Meanwhile, the man in the corner was slowly adjusting to the sudden light. He squinted, lowering his arm to get a clearer look at his visitor.
The young man standing in the doorway was of average height, his shadow stretched long across the floor. Sweat glistened on his pale cheek where the torchlight caught it. His black hair clung messily to his forehead, framing sharp, youthful features that hadn't fully matured.
The boy stood straight—too straight. That posture spoke of discipline, maybe noble upbringing.
His torn white shirt revealed a chest and arms marked with bruises and cuts, blackened and red from lashings. Despite the grime and blood, his skin still carried the pale softness of someone raised far from hardship.
"You're from the Vale's House Corbray?" the prisoner asked at last, his tone cautious. "Or maybe the Riverlands… House Bracken?"
Charles blinked. "What?"
The man studied him closely. The boy's dark hair and eyes suggested a noble family, perhaps foreign but not peasant-born. In Westeros, such features weren't rare, but noble youth like this seldom ended up in dungeons—especially not in rags.
Then Charles spoke again, and all of the man's assumptions fell apart.
"Neither," Charles replied.
His voice was rough and uneven, smoke-tinged and foreign—each syllable sounded off, as if his tongue wasn't used to the shapes of the words.
No… not like a child learning to speak, but like a traveler still fumbling through a foreign tongue.
"Then where are you from?" the man asked, brow furrowed. "Essos? Sothoryos? One of those other damned places I've never heard of?"
"Probably one of the damned places you've never heard of," Charles said dryly.
He had planned to move on, but now… he was intrigued.
The man might have looked like a crippled beggar, but he clearly knew a lot. He sounded like someone educated, worldly.
"A tutorial NPC?" Charles thought to himself, suppressing a smirk.
He decided to get straight to the point.
"I killed the guards outside," he said plainly. "I'm getting out of here. You coming with me or not?"
Thanks to the brief flood of linguistic knowledge he'd absorbed earlier, Charles's Westerosi was clumsy but understandable—enough to get by in conversation.
The man stared at him for a long moment, then shook his head slowly.
"Doesn't matter where you're from," he said hoarsely. "Once you're sentenced, breaking out only adds to your crimes."
A bitter laugh escaped his lips. "And escaping from the Red Keep? That's a fool's dream."
Charles raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? Well, it's still better than sitting here waiting to rot."
He folded his arms. "Last chance. You sure you're not coming?"
"Escape?" the man repeated, chuckling darkly. "You think a limping, half-starved fool with more regrets than strength can make it out of here alive?"
He leaned back against the wall, expression tired but calm, as though he'd already accepted his fate.
Charles watched him in silence, a mixture of irritation and reluctant respect flickering in his eyes.
"Great," he thought dryly. "My first potential ally in Westeros—and he's a crippled philosopher with a death wish."
"Even if I wanted to," the man said bitterly, "I doubt I could make it past the door."
A faint, self-mocking smile tugged at his dirty, unshaven face.
It was clear this man had been broken long before he was thrown in here.
Charles studied him for a moment, then turned away.
"Then stay here and die," he said flatly.
He left without hesitation.
The heavy cell door remained wide open, creaking softly as the cold draft swept through the corridor.
"I won't die," the prisoner murmured to himself, lowering his gaze.
"Though it may cost me my honor."
---
The "recruitment" had failed, but Charles wasn't disappointed.
This floor had plenty of cells.
If this one didn't want to escape, surely someone else would be desperate enough to say yes.
But after half an hour of trying, his optimism was gone.
"Hey!" he called, banging on another door as he peered inside.
Each time, the same scene: motionless figures slumped in corners or lying in heaps of straw.
Alive? Dead? It was hard to tell—and none of them responded.
It was like shouting into a tomb.
Not all were corpses, though. He'd found a few who still breathed, but they were worse off than the first man—too weak to stand, too far gone to be of use.
"What is this place?" Charles muttered under his breath.
"A prison or a graveyard?"
Everyone looked abandoned—rotting, forgotten.
And yet that didn't make sense. The crippled prisoner from earlier had two armed guards stationed outside his cell. That meant he was important.
"Maybe he's special," Charles thought.
He looked toward the stairway at the end of the hall, frowning.
"I could try moving up on my own… The guards are lax. They'd never expect anyone to escape from this pit."
He hesitated.
"But I don't know the layout. If I take a wrong turn and end up in the middle of the barracks…"
He sighed. "Maybe I should at least check upstairs first."
---
The next floor was cleaner, brighter. But the moment Charles saw the iron-barred cells and unfamiliar locks, he knew it was pointless.
The key he'd taken only worked for this level's doors. The ones above were sealed tight.
"Great," he muttered, rubbing his temples. "So much for finding allies."
He glanced back toward the stairs. "Guess I'll have to go ask that guy for directions. The one with the stick up his—"
He didn't finish the thought.
As he descended, he heard movement—unsteady, dragging footsteps from the corridor ahead.
He hurried forward and peeked around the corner—then couldn't help but grin.
The prisoner was out of his cell, one hand braced against the wall, limping his way into the corridor.
"Changed your mind?" Charles asked.
The man paused, breathing hard. "If you'd been starved for who-knows-how-long and suddenly saw a chance at food, you'd change your mind too."
"Then you're going to be disappointed," Charles said dryly. "There's not a scrap of food outside. Unless you want some fresh meat—just killed, still warm."
The older man shot him a look—calm, sharp, unreadable.
He didn't rise to the bait. "This dungeon was cleared by the Gold Cloaks not long ago," he said quietly. "I'm guessing you found no one else alive, so you came back to me—the cripple."
"I wish I hadn't," Charles replied, glancing at the man's leg. "You said you couldn't walk out of that cell. Guess that was an excuse."
"It was," the man admitted. "But tell me—how do you expect a half-grown boy and a crippled old fool to escape from one of the most heavily guarded fortresses in Westeros—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
His hand, resting on the wall for balance, clenched into a fist. His eyes widened, pupils narrowing to pinpoints as he stared past Charles.
"What… what is that?"
Charles turned casually, following his gaze.
Behind him, framed in the flickering torchlight, stood the white-boned silhouette of the undead soldier—its hollow eyes glowing faintly, its jaw working in a soundless grin.
The man froze, breath caught between awe and horror.
Charles smirked. "That," he said, "is why I'm getting out of here."