Chapter 338 - My CO Stash #38 - Bradley the Breaker by Flux Casey (FalloutXAsongofIceandFire) (1/2)
-Easiest dub for the MC, without having any meta-knowledge he cucked the shit out of Prince Rhaegar & King Baratheon at the same time/ Also, I find the Fallout elements always great in NSFW fics like this~
Synopsis: ???
Rated: M
Words: 100K
Posted on: forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/bradley-the-breaker-fallout-asoiaf.10678/#post-2915916 (Flux Casey)
PS: If you're not able to copy/paste the link, you have everything in here to find it, by simply searching the author and the story title. It sucks that you can't copy links on mobile (´ー｀)
-I'll be putting the chapter ones of all the fanfics mentioned, to give you guys a sample if you wan't more please do go to the website and support the author! (And maybe even convince them to start uploading chapters in here as well!)
Chapter 1-3 (exceptional)
There she was. This was his moment. Cindy was alone going through her locker. The world had provided Bradley Plaskett a golden opportunity and he would grab hold of it with both hands! Hastily stuffing his Grognak comic into his bag, he took his chance and approached the girl. She wasn't popular. She wasn't especially attractive, she had braces, a couple of acne scars and had to wear thick corrective lenses. But Bradley knew his limits. He cursed that he couldn't match his cool guy name. Brads were supposed to be cool guys, jocks. Instead he was a gangly nerd. It wasn't the time to bem_o_a_n such things though. Bradley was desperate to improve his image, maybe get a girlfriend. If girls like Cindy were attainable, he'd take what he could get!
”Hey Cindy! It's uhh... Nice weather today, right?”
He felt like his heart was beating out of his c_h_e_s_t, his breathing was short, his palms slick with sweat. Cindy wasn't doing him any favours with the look of contempt she was giving him either. But Bradley decided he had come this far, No matter what he would look like an idiot so he might as well go for it.
”So the... The Halloween dance is coming up and I was wondering if, uhh, if you'd like to... Go with me? I mean if-if you want to, that is! It's not a big deal or anything–”
He heard snickering from somewhere nearby. He didn't want to look. He couldn't look, not when Cindy was glaring at him hard enough to set him alight.
”No.”
Bradley swallowed thickly. Well... He had tried at least. ”Oh... That's cool. I'll just–”
”Sorry, I wasn't clear. Not just no. Hell no.” Cindy clarified, her tone shifting from dismissive to unbridled disdain. ”You asked me, me, out to the dance? I might not be a cheerleader or hang out with the popular girls but you honestly thought you had a chance? Bad enough you're a nerd. You look like the model skeleton in Mister Preston's class came alive and found an acne-covered skinsuit!” He'd been to the dermatologist about it... ”You smell like your route to school takes a detour through the sewer!” His mom kept forgetting to get him the extra strong deodorant... ”You're disgusting. Just me talking to you long enough to tell you this is enough to tank my social cred for the next month. So do us both a favour and don't talk to me ever again, got it?”
Cindy's auburn hair flipped at him as she turned and stormed off, leaving Bradley Plaskett standing in the school hallway, looking and feeling like an idiot. Well. That was definitely more clear. He tried to keep his pace steady as he walked the halls even as the jeering of his classmates crushed his spirit even more. Dad had told him not to be afraid of rejection, that if he failed he should shrug it off and try again. But how could he shrug off something like that?
-(-)-
Bradley Plaskett skipped school the next day. He decided, if even girls who were theoretically attainable for someone like him would mercilessly tear him down like that, he needed to change. The world wouldn't change for him. So he got out of bed at the crack of dawn (because in all of the movies they got up at the crack of dawn), taking the bus to the hiking trails. If he wanted to make something of himself, get himself a girlfriend and... Maybe... Do stuff with her... He needed to take the first step. He needed to get in shape! Get fit! Put on some muscle! Be a cool guy! The hiking trails seemed like a good start for a kid who couldn't afford a gym membership. Lots of hills to climb in Colorado after all!
… His first hike lasted about five minutes before he had to take a break. ”Okay, Bradley! That's fine!” he told himself. ”Slow start. Just get your breath back and–” he almost set himself down on a nearby bench, placed there for people finishing their hikes after coming back down. But at the last moment, he pulled himself back up, standing up straight, even if his lungs begged him not to. ”No. I'm thinking about this all wrong. I can't be a Bradley about this. I need to be a Brad! Be tough! Be Brad! Be cool! Be Brad!” He chanted his mantra with every new step, psyching himself up even as his feet began to ache, his legs began to burn, he got a stitch in his side. All the while he kept pushing himself forward. In the end, his perseverance was rewarded. He managed to climb a moderately sized hill.
His achievement was somewhat undercut by the family with two small children climbing the larger hill nearby. But that was fine! He'd climb that hill too! Just... later. ”For now, I think I've earned a little rest...” Brad gasped out as he wandered a little off the trail, leaning himself up against a tall boulder and just sinking against it.
He wouldn't have known it. Couldn't have known. That it wasn't just a boulder. Or that pushing on it from that exact angle would reveal something great and terrible. All he knew as the boulder shifted impossibly back from the force exerted on it, was the new sensation of falling. ”Wah!” he yelped, tumbling backwards into the darkness, the boulder moving back into place, sealing off the only light source. Brad found himself tumbling, rolling down an incline in pitch darkness– ”OOF!” and crashing at the bottom.
”Ow...” Brad g_r_o_a_n_e_d as he tried to collect himself. Checking himself over he didn't find any major injuries, just some tenderness and stiffness from twisting some things the wrong way. Gingerly, he sat up and tried to get his bearings but found very little in the darkness. His fumbling hands found the incline he had come down, dirt and stone but since it was hidden by a secret entrance it was clearly man-made.
”Man, this is just like the issue of Astoundingly Awesome Tales where a kid discovers a hidden society of mole people!” Brad whispered excitedly to himself, ”But... Then they ate him.” The teen swallowed hard, not feeling quite so excited about his discovery as he had a few seconds before.
The only other sign of life was the dim light coming from further into the tunnel. Sadly, even with his newfound fear of being eaten alive by molemen, Brad saw no other choice but to search in that direction. The incline of the way he came in was too steep and unsteady for him to climb, much less in the dark. So, swallowing his fear for the moment, he got to his knees and began slowly crawling in the direction of the light, shuffling his way forward. As he rounded a corner the light grew brighter, enough that he could see the rough-hewn walls of the cave, the spiders and other bugs that had found their way down here as they tended to. But he quickly dismissed the bugs as a concern as he came around another corner and saw something he certainly hadn't expected to find.
”What's a vault doing down here?” Brad gasped. Certainly he had heard about all of the vaults being built around the states, especially in the most populated and important areas like California, D.C. And the north-east. But why would they build one here? ”Who would ever care to nuke Colorado? … Oh, wait. NORAD. Yeah, that makes sense.” Even so, Brad hadn't heard of any vaults being built where he lived. He would have thought that would be big news. NORAD probably had one, or one of their bases converted to one, but no civilian ones. ”This is so weird.”
”Excuse me!” a speaker blared suddenly, Brad near jumping out of his skin at the sound. ”I say, you there, young man!”
… Well, there was nothing for it. This was civilisation of a sort. It was what he was looking for. ”Y-Yeah?” Brad answered. Right! Be Brad! ”Yeah! I'm Brad! What is this place?”
”Young Master Brad, is it?” Now that Brad wasn't panicking he recognised the voice. It sounded kind of like the default Mister Handy voice. ”May I ask how you found this place, Master Brad?”
”Uhh, I was hiking and leaned on a boulder. Next thing I knew I was down here and now I'm stuck. Could you help me?”
”I see. Well then, nothing for it! Please don't be alarmed, I'm opening the door!”
Brad waited and watched as an orange strobe lit up, accompanied by a buzzing warning siren and the hiss of steam as whatever giant device running the door got to work. The giant gear-like door sank backwards, a large clamp hooking onto it and pulling it, rolling it aside and out of the way. ”So cool!” Brad exclaimed, never having seen one working in person. But a thought occurred. Didn't vault doors usually have the vault number on them?
Brushing the question aside and adding it to the pile that was rapidly building up, he stepped forward and into the vault proper. The room he found himself in was empty save for the control panel and some guard railings blocking some kind of machinery that he couldn't even begin to comprehend. ”Hello?” he asked the empty room, ”Robot voice guy?” As if in response, he heard sounds indicating the door was closing again. ”This is starting to be a little creepy!” he shouted, still receiving no response. Creeping further into the room he asked again, ”Hello?”
There was a clank and hiss as the vault door sealed shut. Only... The hissing sound didn't stop. The door was very clearly shut, he checked. So what... Was... That...
Brad didn't even feel it as he dropped to the mesh flooring, fully unconscious.
-(-)-
”Well I'd say, as always, Director Rosen's preparations have proven him the finest of forward thinkers!” a Mister Handy unit declared as it and two other robots, a Mister Gutsy and Miss Nanny, hovered around the prone form of one Bradley Plaskett. ”To think someone would actually stumble on this place!”
”No plan survives contact with the enemy!” the Gutsy grunted, ”Gotta plan for your plan goin' to shit! Director's a smart man!”
”Oui, it is most fortuitous zat we 'ave orders for situations such as zis!” the Miss Nanny agreed. ”Shall I prepare ze auto-doc for 'im?”
”Of course, of course!” the Handy-bot crowed, ”Let's get him started on his treatment! People like him will be needed when it comes time for the Project to get underway!”
”What is the prognosis, Florence?” the Handy-bot asked, hovering his way into the restricted medical bay.
The Nanny-bot bounced a little. ”Early indications say 'e will respond strongly to ze FEV treatment! Just two more days and zere will be nothing left but to wait for 'is transformation to complete. Zen he shall be ze perfect soldier!”
”Excellent news! I'm sure the Director will be deli–” the Handy-bot's exultations were cut off as a literal earth-shaking BOOM vibrated through the entire vault. ”By Jove, what was that?”
The PA sparked to life. ”Hey, Farnsworth, Florence! We got a problem! Ya know how we got a buncha orders for what to do if the bombs drop?” the voice of the Mister Gutsy blared.
”... Yeeeeeees...?”
”Well, they just came into effect.”
The entirety of the vault-like facility was staffed purely by computers, by robots, by machines. So in a sense, what happened next was an inevitability. The bots staffing the facility were given many different scenarios for what may or may not happen in the event of nuclear war. There were three relevant ones to the current circ_u_mstance.
First. If the facility should be discovered by an unaffiliated party, the bots were to apprehend them and put them through FEV processing, turning them into supersoldier bodyguards, no longer considered human.
Second. After the bombs drop, the survival and well-being of any humans within the facility is to be ensured at all cost.
Bradley Plaskett had been apprehended as per the first protocol. However, he had yet to go through the full FEV treatment, only the preparatory stages. He was still considered human. That meant there was a human inside the facility. Inside the sealed facility. Which meant...
”Very well,” Farnsworth stated only an instant later, his processors having found their only course of action. ”Florence, cancel the FEV treatment. It is no longer something we can perform. We must ensure young Master Brad's well-being and survival at any cost! Ford! Begin the Traversal Protocol!”
”Damn limey bastard thinkin' he can give me orders...” grumbled the voice on the PA, cut off with a click.
”Well, Florence, let's get to work, shall we?”
Two months later.
”How is he coming along?”
”It is so frustrating!” Florence complained. ”It seems not to matter how much we put into 'im, ze treatments show minimal effects! Zere is no other choice! If 'e is to survive wherever 'e is going we must–”
”We cannot use the FEV!” Farnsworth insisted. ”If we use the FEV he is no longer human! We need him to retain his ability to reproduce at the very least!”
”Per'aps zere is a way to achieve zat with FEV?” Florence asked hopefully.
”Impossible! How would we even achieve something like that?”
”Zere is nothing stopping us from retrieving test subjects from outside...”
Despite not having lungs, Farnsworth sighed, cl_i_c_k_i_n_g the PA switch. ”Ford, how far out are we from Traversal?”
”'Nother month, at least.”
”Good. You have another job to do.”
Two more months later
”So? What are your results?”
”I... may have somezing?” Florence hazarded as she picked up a rat.
”A big rat?”
”An FEV infected rat,” Florence corrected. ”Second generation.”
Farnsworth's arms came forward, the Handy-bot equivalent of eagerness. ”The rats are still able to procreate? Could that ability be passed on to other creatures that would normally be turned sterile?”
”We shall see...” Florence teased, her light tone suggesting she was confident in her success.
One month later
”Traversal in three... Two... One...”
No one on the surface would know it. In that moment, the entire facility under Colorado warped and squashed into a space capable of holding a single atom, then smaller still to a proton, then an electron... And then it was gone. Never to be seen or heard from again. In that world, that is.
”...” Farnsworth waited.
”...” Florence waited.
”...” Ford waited.
”Excellent!” Farnsworth cheered. ”I think it is safe to say if we were going to be ripped to shreds by spatial forces or destroyed in some other unforeseen circ_u_mstance it would have happened by now! Florence, is your treatment for young Master Brad ready?”
”More zan ready!” Florence confirmed with a bob in the air. A robot nod.
”Excellent!” Farnsworth bobbed in return. ”Master Brad's survival and well-being is all we must concern ourselves with now.”
-(-)-
Bradley came to wakefulness in many steps. It was a strange and laboured process, his mind seeming to come to life well after the rest of his body. His eyes flickered open, the fluorescent light overhead was painful but his mind was incapable of figuring out what to do about it, thoughts not even coherent enough to close his eyes, or block out the light with his arm, or just simply turn away.
Minutes passed, and finally he managed to squeeze his eyes shut again, sitting up in his bed. Only another few minutes later did he realise it wasn't his bed, that he was in an unfamiliar place. What had happened? His memories were hazy. He remembered… A war? And fighting a bunch of Chinese guys with swords with a giant sledgehammer. Man, that was a crazy dream but it was so lifelike!
As he rose off of the bed, feet planting on the cold tile floor, he was surprised to find his feet, his legs, far more steady than the rest of him. They stood solid under him, as unshakeable as tree trunks. With strong, heavy steps that pounded on the tiles with an audible thump, he brought himself over to a mirror…
The light must have messed with his eyes. He was seeing things. Squinting his eyes shut in hard blinks, what he was seeing didn't change. Squeezing his eyes shut, so hard he could hear the blood rushing in his ears, then opening them again...
”What the shit!”
Chapter 2
”Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh!”
When Brad had first seen his reflection, looked down and inspected himself, he had taken it poorly. The existential confusion of looking into a mirror and not recognising the person staring back at you is not an easy thing to shrug off.
”Duh-duh-duh-duh!”
Thankfully for him his mind, already what he considered his best feature, had received an upgrade. It was more able to process what may have happened to him. Namely, that he was in one of the nicer issues of Astoundingly Awesome Tales. One where he found some weird experiment thing and it had given him a body that could inspire Grognak to hit the gym.
”Duh-duh-duh-duh-duhhhhhh!”
And so began the half hour of making his pecs dance with a goofy grin on his newly handsome face.
It was awesome! All his life he had been frail and wimpy but whatever had happened to him he was now legitimately statuesque! Not just figuratively, either. His body so perfect and solid it might as well have been carved out of marble! His face formerly gaunt and sickly now filled out. His strong jaw that used to only contribute to his bony appearance now made him look like some kind of movie-star action hero! His hair seemed to have grown out quite a bit somehow, long, dark hair flowing down onto his shoulders in waves.
A new exciting thought emerged from his giddy mind and he dropped to the floor to do something he had never been able to do before. Push-ups.
”One! Two! Three! Four! Hot damn this is easy!” He switched it up, trying it with only one hand, the other folded over his back. ”One! Two! Three! Four! Five!” Switching arms. ”One! Two! Three! Four! Five!” Maybe even... He put both hands on the floor and– ”One!” Shoved down, his body lifting fully off the ground. He brought his hands together in a clap before slamming them back on the tile. He fully abandoned counting as he continued, cackling madly to himself as he continued in the exercise that he could barely even feel the strain of. With one final push, he planted his feet flat under himself and stood up again.
���This is the greatest thing that ever happened to me!” Brad crowed, pumping his arms. ”What even is this? Maybe some kind of crazy experimental steroid treatment? Some kind of Super Buffout or something?” A creeping feeling of dread crawled down his back as the word 'Buffout' passed through his lips. Hurriedly pulling away the tracksuit pants he was wearing, ”... Nope. Deeeefinitely not Buffout,” he observed as his grin only got wider. He was hung like a horse now! The rest of him was huge and his d_i_c_k seemed to have just stayed to scale!
He heard a soft ding, a light coming on over the door before it opened, revealing a Miss Nanny bot on the other side. ”Bonjour!” it called cheerily in the standard voice set.
And there he was with his d_i_c_k in his hand.
”Ah! I see you are engaged in ze masturbacion? Would you like me to return in a moment so you may finish?”
Fumbling to get tuck his new super-schlong away, taking a little gratification in how much more effort it took, ”Hi!” he greeted the robot, only a little embarrassed. It was just a robot after all.
”Oh, you 'ave changed your mind? Bon! Allow me to introduce myself! I am Miss Nanny model number 12520, designation 'Florence'.” The french-accented robot said, entering the room and bobbing like it was curtseying. ”A p_l_e_a_s_u_r_e to meet you, Monsieur Brad! I am tasked with ensuring your comfort and continued health.”
Raising an arm and flexing, Brad raised his eyebrows at the nurse-robot. ”Well you're doing a swell job so far.”
”Merci! Is zere anyzing I can do for you?”
”Well I feel fantastic, let me tell you!” he assured her, a tiny burble of laughter escaping as he twitched his pecs a little more for his own amus_e_m_e_nt. ”But what I could really use is some answers. What happened to me? My memory's a little hazy.”
”Oh, of course!” the robot agreed quickly, moving so as not to block the door to make him feel more at ease. ”Well, a great many zings happened since you fell unconscious–”
”Wait, how did I fall unconscious? The last thing I remember was... Falling down a hole?” Or was that part of the dream?
”Ah, oui! You fell and stumbled across zis facility. As you were not auzorised to be 'ere, you were appre'ended and brought into the facility to undergo Forced Evolutionary Virus treatment and become an unzinking soldier for ze inhabitants of ze facility.”
”Wha–”
”And zen, one day later, ze United States were bombarded with many nuclear weapons, turning ze surface into an irradiated wasteland.”
”Nuclear–!”
”Zis meant ze circ_u_mstances surrounding you 'ad changed and our top priority became ensuring your survival and well-being. Zus, we searched out and applied treatments to you zat would not be so destructive to your body, leaving you as ze pinnacle specimen of 'umanity you are now! I must say, I am quite proud of myself for zat, I designed ze improved treatment zat stopped you from becoming sterile!” Sterile?! Brad was so taken aback, he could no longer even lend his voice to his horror. ”Master, would you like to sit down? You seem to be becoming quite agitated!”
Agitated? That was a word for it. Brad sank heavily onto his bed, hearing and feeling the metal creak under his weight. ”Nuclear war broke out?”
”Zat is correct.”
”Everyone's dead?”
The Nanny-bot's arms raised in a shrug. ”We do not know, it was not ze purpose of zis facility. Merely to ensure ze survival of ze people in zis base and bring zem safely to our destination.”
”Bring them? Where?”
The door chimed again. ”Ah, I suppose it would be my turn!” A Handy-bot appeared in the doorway and hovered his way into the room. ”Good morning, sir! Mister Handy model 23010, designation 'Farnsworth' at your service!”
”... Hi?”
”Delighted to make your acquaintance in the flesh, so to speak!” The thruster at the robot's base flared brighter causing the robot to do a little hop-like motion. ”As to your question, this facility, designated the Fallback Underground Bunker and Relocator, or Vault F, is one of multiple places of refuge for the fine people of Vault-Tec should the need for one be met, the sixth and final in fact. Should the world above be beyond saving, this facility is designed with the intent of travelling from one reality to another!”
”That's not possible.”
”I am afraid, Master Brad, that I must respectfully disagree! Not only is it possible, we have done it!”
”... How!”
The robot, to its credit, looked about as sheepish as a robot could. ”I, err, I'm afraid I don't know. I am merely a service robot after all. Even the supercomputer on level four would likely give you the numerical equivalent of 'I haven't the foggiest'. Director Rosen was a genius but he might as well have been performing magic for how much anyone else could understand. Suffice to say, from an outside perspective we shrunk down to smaller than the smallest subatomic particle, entered some sort of quantum something-or-other, came back out in another reality and returned to normal size! Pushing aside anything that might get in our way!” He finished in a lower, more conspiratorial voice, ”That last part turned out to be important, as it happens! We'd have been crushed against the inside of a mountain otherwise!”
It hadn't been said in quite these words, but Brad understood well enough how many times he almost died over the past however long it had been. ”So... What now?”
”Well, Master Brad, that would rather be up to you to decide. Ford, our Mister Gutsy, is currently charging our excavator robots with digging us a path out from under wherever we are. Should you wish to explore the world above, or simply stay here in the safety of Vault F, we will be happy to serve you however we are able. You are our master.”
”And our charge,” Florence added, ”Whatever you may need we will be 'appy to provide.”
-(-)-
Brad took a few days to get to grips with his new reality. He remembered what he had in his old life. His parents, and... That was about it. It was a depressing thought how little he had lost with the end of the world but even so, what he had lost hurt. His parents were almost certainly dead. But with no bodies, no funerals, it was hard for it to feel real, hard for the impact of their loss to land. Regardless, he knew they wouldn't want him to wallow when such an incredible opportunity had been thrust upon him. He had a chance at a new life, a greater life filled with adventure! He was on a whole new world! It would be the greatest waste in history to let such a chance to pass by!
Over those few days he got to grips with himself, finding out the facts of what had been done to him. According to Florence, he was no longer capable of physically ageing. Whether that meant he would live forever or just stay in his physical prime until literal old age took him remained to be seen. On top of that, his physical and mental abilities had been raised to human limits and then doubled on top of that, give or take a few percentile points. He had been made legitimately superhuman!
And then there were the resources now at his disposal. It had been a surprise when the Mister Gutsy, Ford, showed him the armoury. Brad picked up a rifle, stripped it and reassembled it in less than a minute, dropping the thing on realising what he had done without even thinking about it. It was at this point that he learned the dreams he had been remembering weren't dreams but instead virtual reality training scenarios! He could look at any weapon in the armoury and know exactly how to use it. Even the power armour sets, whether framed or single unit systems, he could climb into and operate like he had been born in one!
Even so, even with all of the training he had, he felt himself gravitating to one particular piece of equipment.
The super sledge.
An oversized sledgehammer fitted with a kinetic storage device to add an incredible amount of force to every swing! It called to him. His childish fantasies of being a warrior of legend like Grognak begging to be fulfilled. Maybe they were on a primitive world like his and Brad could fight ancient monsters trying to eat hot girls! Or maybe they were on an alien planet and he could rescue hot alien girls from their evil alien overlords!
”Master Brad!” the voice of Farnsworth rang through the intercom, ”The eyebot has returned and it found something... peculiar.”
Peculiar was understating it. It seemed the place the vault had ended up was indeed halfway up a mountain. The data the eyebot brought back indicated wherever they were, it was either winter or a quite cold climate. As it scouted out the area it had found signs of civilisation. Specifically, pre-industrial civilisation. Perhaps even pre-renaissance. Brad's fantasy of becoming a legendary warrior seemed closer by the moment. Even more exciting, the people of this place seemed human!
His course was set. There was no doubt left in his mind. He needed to explore this new world for himself. Slay monsters, find fortune, bed beautiful women! It was his destiny!
”Do you really 'ave to go?” Florence asked as he stood at the vault exit, decked out in a suit of single unit power armour slightly altered to fit the time period, ready to embark on his adventure. ”It is safer 'ere.”
”Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness!” Ford disagreed, ”If this is what he wants then by God he should go for it! Get on out there, son! You show these aliens what the men of the good ol' US of A are made of!”
”I will. Thanks, Ford.”
”Should you need anything, Master Brad, we shall be right here, ready to serve!”
”And do not 'esitate to use your distress beacon if you are in danger!” Florence added before Brad could turn away. ”I will 'ave ze assaultron zere to rescue you immediately!”
”Uhh, thanks!” Brad said with a wave as he backed away, hitting the vault door open. He wasn't sure it was a good idea to introduce a doom laser murder machine into a pre-industrial society but he'd learned over the past few days the robots were very keen on keeping him safe. Best to just go with it if things were going his way. ”Well, wish me luck.”
”Good luck, Master Brad!”
”Stay safe!”
”Tear those medieval commies a new one for me!”
And so the siren blared once again and the vault door closed behind him. Brad's adventure in a new world had truly begun.
As Brad emerged from the long tunnel to the outside world he was met with a vaguely familiar image, familiar for more than one reason. The eyebot had taken pictures of the outside world as it floated about so the view from the vault exit he had seen before. However, it was also familiar because it reminded him of home a little. They weren't just under a mountain, they were under a mountain range. To the south and the east, natural formations of snow-capped stone tried to pierce the sky. Behind him, to the north, a peak that seemed to dwarf any others within seeing distance stood over his new home.
To the west? The west was a series of steep slopes down to what in other seasons might be rolling plains, but for now was a light blanket of snow. ”Well, nothing for it!” Brad lamented, his eager grin at complete odds with his words as he began leaping down the hill, the severe drop barely even an inconvenience to him. For anyone else the ice and snow combined with the poor visibility would make it a precarious trek at best, but for him... He felt powerful from how easy it was. Maybe not invincible. One particular drop was a little further than he thought and the shock bypassed even his power armour. But even if he wasn't invincible, he certainly felt dominant over anything this world could throw at him.
Before long he found himself at the base of the mountain range, panting not from exertion but from exhilaration! ”Okay, so the road should be...” Continuing west he found a road travelled enough that it was still visible despite the intermittent snowfall. Wagon and animal tracks as well as human footprints all going the same direction: south. ”Perfect!” He began walking south towards the nearest settlement the eyebot had found. However, he quickly got impatient, picking up his pace to a brisk jog. It felt like a more natural pace for him, felt like the level of exertion he was used to from walking. It would take some time to adjust to his new body, it seemed.
His quicker pace got him where he was going much faster than he expected, finding himself in the little village before sundown. ”Charltonall,” he muttered to himself on seeing the sign for the place, with a little shield painted on it, green and yellow with three sprigs of... Holly? No, mistletoe... Probably. So if this were a feudal society that would be the shield of the local lord or something like that? The village had the look of just a small bit of civilisation on the road but it was busy despite its size. The place seemed inundated with carriages adorned with more fancy shields stopped just on the outskirts. The glow of campfires keeping warm the people who couldn't get proper shelter in the little town.
”'Nother new face?” a man asked him, surprising Brad out of his examinations, not just from not being noticed but also speaking english.
Score one for fantasy writers, he supposed. ”I suppose.”
”Well, 'fraid to say milord but we're fresh out of room,” the man said apologetically. ”If'n you've a need, I'm sure there's folks who'll offer you a bit o' comfort for a bit o' coin.”
”That's alright, I can manage,” Brad answered with an easy grin. ”You guys look a bit swamped with all the visitors though. Anything I can do to help?”
The man blinked, his head twisting sharply as if to rattle the word around in his brain in hopes of making sense of it. ”Help?”
”Yeah! I got a strong pair of hands, might as well use 'em!”
-(-)-
Two women watched the giant at work, for what else could he be but a giant? He was a head and a half taller than any other man in the village, even the hedge knights passing through on their way to Harrenhal. ”Father, Warrior and Smith just look at those muscles!” Annae gasped as the man, b_a_r_e c_h_e_s_ted despite the cold, brought his axe down on a log and split it cleanly, his muscles rippling with the effort.