12 Spectora

After leaving the house Robb explored the other buildings in the town. Like the first house, all the other buildings are in very good condition; They don't seem to have been abandoned for centuries.

"It's as if just a few hours ago all the inhabitants decided to take some of their belongings and leave." murmured the boy as he walked towards a building bigger than the others that is located on the other side of town.

The building is circular, like all the other buildings in the town, and has eleven floors. Its circumference is greater than that of any other building in the area.

The huge bronze doors are as big as the entrance to the Great Hall at Winterfell, Robb could barely open them.

"Hufff." The boy wipes the sweat from his forehead and enters the dark building, seeing that it has no windows, he grabs one of the torches hanging from the walls and after struggling to light it without getting a spark at first, he manages to do so after a couple of minutes.

With a torch in hand he enters the building.

"A library!" The boy shouts excitedly.

Entering the building he saw that the entire space was filled with shelves of books, scrolls and artifacts. To one side of the huge circular room he saw a stairway leading up to the upper levels of the library.

Robb runs to the nearest bookcase and pulls out a book.

Within it there are no words even remotely similar to the Common Tongue writing system.

"Runes," The boy recognizes the runic system of the first men.

They were the written language of the Old Tongue. Robb felt grateful for Old Nan in that moment, thanking her graciously for teaching him how to read and write in the First Men's language. His brother did not share his enthusiasm for the language and therefore he never learned it.

"In the tenth month of the year 3701 IE the prince of the Frozen Shore married the daughter of the great explorer Kristoff and together they had two sons-"

Robb continues reading a few pages over and with each word his enthusiasm increases even more.

"These are books from before the Long Night!"

***

The days soon turned into weeks without the heir to the North even realizing it. Robb spent all his time reading the numerous books and scrolls, only stopping to eat when his hunger weighed so heavily on him that he felt like he was about to pass out, the same with sleep; Robb only slept when his eyelids were too heavy and exhaustion caused him to see double.

Robb learned that his ancestors came from the farthest continent: Ulthos. They used to be part of an empire called the Novii Empire but after a civil war they self-exiled and migrated to the land then known as the Last Land, now Westeros.

He also learned how the Long Night began and what that terrifying period of world history was like.

And most exciting of all were the many books about magic, books detailing how that mysterious energy called magic works and recounting many tales of powerful wizards of old.

But that was not all, Robb also found many magical artifacts in the library. Among them stand out The Spectora also known as Seeing-stones, were spherical stone objects used for communication and intelligence gathering.

The Spectora, in appearance, were perfectly smooth, dark spheres of various sizes; some were small and portable, about the size of a man's fist, while others (particularly the Master Spectora) were too huge for a man to lift.

The spheres worked almost like an eye, that is, it had to be focused in the direction you wanted to look; if you wanted to look east you had to hold the sphere to the east, etc. Being focused, you could see hundreds of miles, the limit being 800 miles, further away places were less clearly seen. The spheres allow you to see through solid objects such as walls or walls but you cannot see through the body of a living being (that includes plants).

The Spectora could not transmit sound; they could only show visions or intentional thoughts of users.

When two stones communicated with each other, another viewer of a third stone would find them blank. However, master stones can "hear" these mental conversations.

Using the spectora requires a person with great willpower, Robb spent weeks without even being able to activate either of the two portable spectora he found in the library.

Another magical artifact he found in a chest were torches made from the mysterious silver stone. They give light and heat, similar to fire. After finding the silver torches he stopped using fire torches.

***

After reading several dozen books from each floor of the library, Robb finally reached the top floor of the library (he didn't read all the books on each floor, only five or six from each section).

When he got there, the first thing that caught his attention was not the books, but a wooden door. When he opened it, he saw that it opened onto a balcony.

From the balcony he could see the whole town on one side, and on the other side in the distance he saw a gigantic tree with red leaves.

"The Heart tree" he mutters with a slightly scratchy voice since he hasn't been drinking enough water, nor has he eaten enough, one could already notice a small sinking in his cheeks and if the boy were to take off his shirt his ribs would be very noticeable.

After more than a month Robb finally came out of his reverie and remembered something very important:

"Winterfell! No one knows what happened to me, they must be super worried! Father must have arrived already! And the baby! Mother was about to give birth… Jon is going to kill me."

Robb Stark finally remembered that he started this adventure without saying anything to anyone, in Winterfell no one knows what happened to him or where he is, the pup only took almost five weeks to realize that.

"I have to find a way to get back home!"