Ding!
A sharp notification chime blasted in Ian's mind, jolting him awake from a deep sleep.
He lifted his head, looking around in confusion.
He was in a shabby inn room. The bed was rickety, the wooden table was darkened by years of grime, and the curtains looked like they hadn't seen a washtub in a decade. The whole place screamed "cheap."
Outside the window, a fine drizzle was falling. It didn't bring any relief from the heat; it just made the air muggy and oppressive.
Ian felt gross and sticky. He threw off the quilt, realizing he was soaked in sweat.
Suddenly, a crazy impulse hit him. He bit down hard on his own forearm. He didn't let go until sharp pain shot through his brain. Wincing, he looked at the deep teeth marks on his skin and smiled bitterly.
"Damn. This feels way too real."
He knew the organizers were industry legends, and he never doubted their tech. But actually waking up in another body, in another world? It felt like a fever dream.
He sat there for a few minutes, forcing his heart rate to slow down.
As he calmed, he realized there were new memories in his head. They weren't specific—no faces of loved ones or cherished moments—but they provided a complete backstory.
The clearest memories were practical knowledge: the heraldry of minor noble houses in the Vale, the rituals of a knight's vigil in the Sept, and muscle memory for riding and swordplay.
Just as the AI, Annie, had promised, these memories would help him blend in.
He was a "Hedge Knight"—so named because their entire fortune consisted of their horse and weapons, often forcing them to sleep outdoors under hedges.
Thankfully, as a player, his starting situation wasn't quite that dire yet. Otherwise, he wouldn't have picked this class.
Taking a deep breath, Ian climbed out of bed and walked to the window.
The sky was gloomy. The dirty glass reflected his new face—a handsome youth with blond hair. He pushed the window open, and a massive structure immediately dominated his view.
It was a colossal black tower, looming high above the other castle buildings like a giant among children. But the top of the tower, which should have pierced the sky, was twisted and melted to one side, looking exactly like a giant, half-melted black candle.
"Is that... melted stone? Dragonfire?" Ian licked his dry lips, his throat suddenly parched. "Am I at Harrenhal?"
The scene before him overlapped perfectly with the images in his memory.
He turned back to the table, grabbed a pitcher, and chugged the water straight from the spout. A faint spicy-malt flavor hit his tongue—cheap ale, or maybe just bad water.
Damn it! Talk about a bad omen.
Sure, he chose the Riverlands, but the region is huge. Why did he have to spawn at Harrenhal?
Harrenhal was built by the last King of the Isles and the Rivers, Harren the Black. It took forty years and bankrupted the Riverlands to build what was supposed to be the "greatest fortress in Westeros."
The walls were thicker than Storm's End. The gatehouse was as big as the main keep of Highgarden. Harren claimed it was impregnable.
But much like the Titanic, the "impregnable" Harrenhal didn't fall to conventional means. It didn't fall to a siege engine or an army. It fell to Aegon the Conqueror and his dragon, Balerion the Black Dread, attacking from the sky.
Harren the Black and his entire line were roasted alive in the highest tower. That melted black candle in Ian's view was the Kingspyre Tower.
Since then, Harrenhal had been cursed. Every noble House granted the castle eventually went extinct. Anyone who held it met a grisly end.
"Just my luck," Ian muttered, wiping cold sweat from his forehead. "Hey AI, what's the timeline right now?"
"Hand of the King Jon Arryn has just passed away," Annie replied instantly. "King Robert Baratheon is preparing for the funeral. Afterward, he plans to travel to Winterfell to ask Eddard Stark to serve as the new Hand of the King."
Ian nodded slowly.
In the books, the story starts when Robert is already arriving at Winterfell. But right now, Robert hasn't even left King's Landing.
The distance from King's Landing to Winterfell via the Kingsroad is about 2,300 kilometers (roughly the distance from New York City to Dallas). Given that Robert travels with a massive royal caravan, the trip takes about two months.
That put the current date around late 297 AC.
He was about three months ahead of the main plot. And more importantly, more than a year before the outbreak of the War of the Five Kings.
That meant Westeros still had over a year of peace left.
This puzzled Ian. The organizers had promised that all game mechanics were pre-set and that they wouldn't interfere once the simulation started. So, what kind of mechanic had they designed to force players to kill each other during a time of peace?
In a permadeath game, nobody is going to start PvP (Player vs. Player) early on without a massive incentive. One mistake and you're dead.
"Alright, Annie," Ian said, his curiosity piqued. "Break down the detailed game mechanics for me."
"There are three main mechanics in this game," Annie began.
"First: The Kill Mechanic. Every player you kill grants you 4 Points. Additionally, you inherit all of the victim's unused System resources—this includes Points, Attribute Points, Skill Points, and System Items. You also receive a bonus reward based on the victim's development progress in the world.
"Note: You receive 100% of the rewards if you kill the target personally. If your minions, soldiers, or hired mercenaries perform the kill, you only receive 50% of the rewards."
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Note regarding distances:
Based on the canon statement that the Wall is 100 leagues (300 miles/480 km) long, fans have estimated the land area of the mapped portion of Westeros to be roughly 3.5 million square miles (similar to the size of Europe).
Winterfell to King's Landing: ~1,400 miles (2,300 km).
Winterfell to Castle Black: ~700 miles (1,100 km).