21 Operation one piece

Four weeks, it took four more weeks to finish my new mansion…building with brick and stone takes forever compared to fitted wood but good golly it's worth it…

It's magnificent, I used up probably 90% of the stock piled brick for the general walling ….it used the earlier brick as inner walling of the 4 layers of bricks because the earlier bricks were a bit dodgey looking, but over the weeks the kiln people really hit their stride and made visually appealing bricks….

a good amount of stone i pilfered from the stoney shore and the surrounding mountains went into making anything even remotely load bearing in the floors or support pillars, that was what took most of my time to carve and craft… but I've made it so strong I reckon I could have my proposed space marine dance troupe hold practice on the 3rd floor safely if I wanted to…

The new home is 3 stories, but it could probably count as 5 due to the fact I mark the ceilings ridiculously high to make sure I never feel cramped inside my own home..

The red brick with the contrast of the grey stone edging really makes the place pop, I went for a mid century gothic style build to really lean into my time spent living in hell, it's just gives me a constant reminder that I'm here now and away from that nightmarish place.

I could only fit wooden shutters for windows at the moment due to not having the time to get glass going, but I've set it up so it will be easy enough to replace them with wooden trimmed glass windows when I get around to it.

I've had some of the newer people who have been drizzling in working on fleshing out the sewage system I plan on getting up and running soon enough, with enough leeway for expansion of course.

Over the past 4 weeks, Will has sent out a few of his guys to spread rumours of the place to be, "Newtown" was rumoured to have all the work and food they could ask for, with the safety of gigantic demigod psychopathic opportunistic cannibal watching over you while you sleep….well they didn't tell them that exactly, more along the lines of "Lord Fenris is a baller, come be his people" but with more fluff

But it worked pretty well as rumours started popping up that Glover couldn't even protect his own shit, how could he protect yours? So a lot of people from random villages around Deepwod motte who had nothing to lose and were sick of iron born decided to take a chance and take a stroll over, some even with family's….

Which led to a housing shortage, but was resolved easily enough with people pitching in to help out build some temporary housing that somehow looked better than their old housing to keep them out of the elements until brick houses started piling up..

You would be amazed at what 30 people working together for 4 days can throw together when they try, so temporary huts were scattered around all over the village making it look even poorer than before, but again it's fine because I really hammered it into all the people that every single house in the town is going to be torn down to build anew..

The sewage system I've been having the newbies digging has been going pretty well, I planned on actually building it right so I don't have to fix it every few years….so a lot of time and stone is going toward that little project, I have a bunch of people and carts making trips to stoney shore to collect rocks to stock pile.

On nights over the last 4 weeks,when I wanted a break I took a run around my territory to see what I could see and found another bandit group or 2 trying to set themselves up and cleaved them apart, and only minimal cannibalism though, only a bit of the leader to find out any info….

Plenty of loot, saved a few people who eventually made their way back to my town to settle with worship in their hearts at their new lord and protector…

None of the bandits were Glovers guys which was expected, he's probably to busy trying to recover from his "iron born" raid to try shit with me at the moment.

Surprisingly I had another iron born raid on "Newtown" over the last moon, 3 ships I spotted one night while overlooking the ocean on a break that were trying to sneak into the village under the cover of darkness….well my space marine peepers picked them up, and a quick skinny dip and some punching later I had 3 new ships I didn't have enough people to crew…the amount of work it took to guide in 3 ships at once alone was exhausting, having to jump from ship to ship for like an hour to keep everything on course…

But I now have 5 ships crewed and out on the sea fishing which is a bonus, with new hands moseying over to Newtown all the time, filling the new ships won't take to much longer I reckon…

The farms that I threw together have really started to flower, fields of grain and vegetables as far as the eye can see….well their eyes anyway, but the fields are truely massive and while not ready to harvest for awhile are looking pretty fly….the farmers are doing what they're told and spreading blood and bone meal to the areas I suggested and it's really helped the crops bloom

I'm really going to have to cobble together a form of primitive irrigation system for them, even with all the farm hands the farmers hire watering literal miles of crops is wearing them down, they should thank their lucky stars I built all of the farms close to freshwater rivers

They still seem a little hesitant on the 4 crop system we're going to be running but I let them know as politely as I could that I didn't give a fuck what they thought and they would do what I said or they would be homeless….so the 4 crop rotation is a go.

People are trickling in but it still not enough, we need more people to really take off, my iron born raise will have to start soon..

I've actually let Will in on my plans to raid the iron born, and while he was a little hesitant he still was on board and I slowly let it be known to some of the crews of the fishing boats what i was going to do, and surprisingly they were all pretty down for some frontier justice, they paused a little at my scorched earth policy of leaving no survivors outside of the thralls and saltwives, but eventually came around….I told them to be tight lipped about it and let them know how much I would be displeased if they let it slip….loose lips sink ships after all….

Heh….I also pulled a few jobs in the Glovers lands on my night runs, mostly stealing cattle like some cartoon fox, just for dramatic effect and a little fun I would quietly cackle like a villain as I made off with my quarry, I couldn't actually carry the stolen living meat products in a big nap sack over my shoulder….not for the lack of trying though,but the loot always ended up dying or broken before we got home so, sheep went under the arms and horses and ox went across the shoulders

Calm natured ox were just better animals for plowing land, so I raided as many as I could get my hands on and handed them over to the farmers to be paid for later..

My wolf pups Thor and Loki have really shot up like weeds over the last moon as well, not to mention their wilder side start peeping through as they won't let people touch them anymore bar me and Will, Will mainly due to the fact that he feeds and waters them… but I'm just the alpha in their eyes so it doesn't really matter what i do, I'm number one..

They still have their playful nature, love to play fetch once they learned what it entailed and while to small to hunt anything of substance at the moment, they run off into the woods and returns with rabbits from time to time, and boast around like they were true hunters…..the cocky little prick Loki even had the nerve to give me a look when they dropped a rabbit at my feet one time, the look was an arrogant "impressed?" Look….i couldn't be having some mutt even entertain the thought of arrogance around me…

The pup seemed to have forgotten how we Met, so I grabbed him and his brother for a night adventure where I brought them before another bear the same size that killed their mother and ripped it in half in front of their very eyes….needless to say Loki didn't have any more cockiness toward me after that….only respect and admiration.

But now with my house basically finished, minus furniture, I have a little more lee way in terms of looking toward the iron islands..

It's not as easy as just popping over and raiding by the place over night, I'll be gone for a month minimum because it takes a week or two to get to the iron islands from here depending on weather, and I'm stuck at the ships pace.

And that will be a month of me not being here in case something happens, and with me having a bit of a feud with my neighbouring lord it could be a problem…but I reckon I just should just duck over there and cause some "chaos" before I leave to keep 'em busy for awhile, while I run off to out pirate the pirates

So with that in mind I start to wander into town with Thor and Loki keeping pace with me as I go to find Will to get preparations for "operation one piece" off the ground and into reality…

I'm kind of excited…

—————

Stones please if you would like to see more chapters, I won't put a number on it, but if I can end this week at number 1 monthly I'll do some bonus chapters

Leave a review if you're enjoying the story :)