Downloading the Iron Thrones - Chapter 5
297 AC
Inside a cave somewhere in Mountain of Moon, There were some men kneeling in front of a young man. The young man was listening to the progress of training of the recruits. The young man sitting on the seat was Artys Arryn.
Hearing the progress, Artys was satisfied with the training. He was now training his own league of assassins. A year ago only after a month of returning from the Gull Town, there was an assassination attempt on him.
When he was sleeping on his room, there was an assassin creeping toward his bed. When the assassin felt he was within the effective range, he slowly took his dagger out. But just when the assassin was going to move, a gyrfalcon came from the window.
*kak kak kak*
Hearing the sound, Artys hurriedly evaded the attack from the assassin. Although it was dim, Artys soon adapted to the dim light and saw a man in black trying to attack him. With quick reflex, Artys also grabbed dagger from under his bed.
Facing each other, Artys and the assassin took a defensive stance. Hearing the sound, there were hurried footsteps outside the room. The assassin wanted to escape but Artys quickly blocked his escape route. Opening the door, guards came in. Seeing another man holding a dagger, guards hurriedly surrounded the assassin.
Seeing this, assassin wanted to kill himself but Artys hurriedly caught his hand and threw the dagger to the ground giving a kick on the back of assassin’s knee. Binding his hands with the rope, Artys brought the assassin to the dungeon.
Artys called for the interrogator. While waiting for him, Artys wanted to download some assassin’s skills and knowledge. He long wanted to form his own assassin’s league. Touching the head of the assassin, a screen came in front of Artys.
After only tens of seconds, the download was completed. With all these downloads, Artys was now very adaptable to the downloaded contents. With these downloads, he then slowly closed his eyes to arrange the contents.
After few minutes the interrogator came, with the professional coming in, Artys left the room for him. He was looking at the dagger that assassin was carrying.
“My lord, the dagger seems to be coated with poison. It seems that he really wanted to kill you.”
“Well it seems to be the case. But who is trying to kill me?”
“We will have to wait for the assassin to open up his mouth for this my lord.”
“If he is so prepared to kill me even as far as trying to kill himself, I don’t think he will open his mouth.”
As expected, the interrogator was unable to open his mouth. Artys decided to keep him in the sky cell to try to break his mind and went to his room to calm his mind.
This incident motivated Artys to cultivate his own league of assassins and spies to infiltrate other forces in Westeros so that he can avoid such scenarios. Which brings the scene back to mountain of moon.
Standing up from his seat, Artys looked to the people kneeling in front of him. Although there was only a year of training, it seems that the brainwashing and discipline has gain its basic foundation of the league members.
“Rise”
Hearing this, the assassins slowly rose up. Then Artys continued.
“Today is a very important day. As today you will get your first task. Each of you will be required to infiltrate and kill a person. Once you complete your first task, you will get your first rank. With increased rank, there will be increased resources. So, try to complete your first task otherwise you will have to face punishment.”
Saying this, Artys walked outside the room. Going to the inner part of the cave, he came to a room guarded by two men. Opening the door, he entered the room with a map of Westeros and the western Essos. This private room was created for some of his secret plans. With more and more people under him, it seems that some people were having ideas about him.
The repeated assassination from previous year, he was forced to train his own network to counter attack them. Till now, there has been almost five assassination attempt on his life. Although he was unable to figure out the one who has been sending them, he has been very cautious about his life recently which may have attributed to the stoppage of assassination in more than half year.
There was a letter to him from his mother and father worrying for his life. But although they were worried, they did not call for him to the King’s landing knowing that there might be more danger in the capital.
Even the food tester has been appointed to avoid poisoning. He has been desperately seeking some rare beast with some surviving abilities. The one with the poison resistance were very rare and some were not found in Westeros. His best bet was on the Essos continent and Sothoryos, where weird and powerful beasts has been found out.
He has also sent people to capture some live animals. Gyrfalcon was one of the outcome of this expedition. With this much effort, he finally found some hope in honey badgers. They had some thick skins along with poison resistance, which Artys was looking for. Currently he has advanced poison resistance giving him resistance against common venom but not enough to fully resist some magical venoms such as from manticore.
And he also has thick skins that can resist daggers and knives but swords will still damage his skins. To increase his resistance to sword piercings, he will have to find more thick skinned animals.
He has also been training and hiring shipbuilders same as the ForgeMount format to build ships quickly like from Braavos. While he was at Braavos, he checked the working environment and downloaded the shipbuilding skills and have been supervising them.
Artys has placed this factory on the coast of Bay of crabs, but not on the territory of House Grafton. He placed it in the territory of House Ruthermont. House Ruthermont of Ruthermont fort is one of the principal noble houses in the Vale of Arryn with a sigil of five black starfish on a gold pale, on pean.
Currently Harwin Ruthermont is the lord of Ruthermont and head of the hose Ruthermont.
Few months ago, Artys came to his territory to meet with this Lord. Lord Ruthermont is a tall, middle aged man with dark hair and grey hairline going through it and sharp eyes. When Artys met him, Ruthermont came as a polite man.
In a private chamber, Artys met with Lord Ruthermont to discuss some business. He said to Artys, “I heard some disturbing news regarding you, my lord. But seeing you good brings relief to this old man’s heart. Have you found who sent you the assassins?”
“Not yet. But we are looking into it. But I have come here for another business my lord don’t know if you are interested.”
“How may I be of service to you my lord?”
“I want to build ship building factory on your territory and expand it to make it another port city.”
“I am interested to build another port city my lord. But it won’t be possible without large amount of investment of golds.”
“Yes I am aware of it. But I am not going to invest so much from the start. I will take your coastal village as a base and build the ship factory of our own on par with the Braavos. Then we will slowly develop from that town. Gull Town was also not build on one day. It took decades to build the only port city in Vale.”
Hearing this, Lord Ruthermont was a bit stressed as the coastal village Artys wanted was the only source of the fort as it was a suppliers to the fort. Although he wanted to build the port city, he did not want to exchange the current stability with the unknown fortune.
“Yes my lord. It may be feasible this way. But if you don’t mind, the coastal village you are trying to build your city on is the only source of income and if you try to make a drastic change, the income of the villagers will be affected.”
“Don’t worry Lord Ruthermont. I will just build the factory and you just have to supply some able men to train. I will guarantee that in few years, I will turn this village to largest and fastest ship building town in Westeros.”
Sighing a relief, Lord Ruthermont quickly replied. “If that is the case, I will help you as much as I can my lord.”
With this, Artys built the factory and brought some ship building talents to train as same as the ForgeMount factory. With the abundant forest nearby, the wood will be cheaper not as same as Braavos. This will give him edge to provide cheaper ships in the almost same efficiency or more in this new ship building factory.
Within a month, the building was ready. For few months he himself trained some shipbuilders and trainee to how to increase the ship building process. With division of labor, the parts required to build ships can be quickly built. The only thing affecting the speed was the size of the ships and the type of ships.
The warships required different ship building techniques whereas the merchant ships and fishing ships varies.
He was also training sailors and seaman as he was trying to build a larger fleet for House Arryn for trading as well as battles. But first he will focus on trading due to his high expenditure on the ForgeMount and now this shipbuilding.
Although there were some fleets in Vale, there were no fleets of House Arryn but other coastal noble houses. So, this time he was trying to enter the maritime industry.
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After making some plans, Artys left the room. Coming out of the cave, he rode towards the Eyrie.
The exit and entrance of the league was very secretive as Artys did not want anyone other than him and league members to know about the location. And same as the weapon warehouse of ForgeMount, the headquarter of the league was also placed inside the mountain.
Well he has to somehow use these mountains in the vast mountain range that occupies most of the Vale.
Returning to his room, he checked his folder to better plan his next route.
He also downloaded from the gyrfalcon which he now keeps as a pet. He can now also fight in night as well as can focus his sight to see from 2 miles away. Bringing his fighting prowess to another level. But he still has not been able to download physique and strength of advanced level. Maybe he can download from predatory animals for strength and physique.
