Family Meeting (END)

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Once Armin entered the stage both Selwyn and Galladon took a step back and left the discussion to their retainers and the vassals of House Tarth.

One everyone realized that the young heir and the Lord of House Tarth refrained from exposing any more opinions, the discussions quickly heated up. Only when the situation escalated did Selwyn step in to defuse the argument.

Overall, Galladon was quite happy with how the conversation was going. Armin really surprised him during the whole event. He kept clearheaded and didn't compromise on any bottom line, no matter how hard the vassals tried to pressure him. It was quite a lot of work, but in the end Galladon and his subordinates achieved the success they wanted.

Nevertheless, he had to compromise on many benefits in Sapphire Hall and even promised shares in some industries regarding Tarth Honey.

Only Sapphire Honey Wine and the future luxury meat industry was left untouched. Many of his subordinates, and even Selwyn himself, were not sure why Galladon wanted to compromise with the old vassals of House Tarth so badly. House Tarth was no longer what it used to be.

Their military strength and control over the whole islands rapidly increased in recent years, completely able to suppress any resistance on Tarth in the shortest time. Selwyn didn't even expect any resistance even if they kept a tougher stance. 

But Galladon insisted on his opinion this time, not listening to any persuasion. In his mind everybody somehow missed to most important victory of the whole evening. While trading immediate and future benefits of his innovative industries, he gained major concessions of their many vassal families regarding road building in their territory, including using members of their family for infrastructure construction.

Additionally, he gained mining rights to many minerals that were currently in deep forests or steep mountains, not touched for hundreds of years because of lacking infrastructure. 

Galladon never underestimated the vassals of House Tarth. Many of those families existed nearly as long as House Tarth themselves. They survived for tens of generations, managing their own lands without any rebellion or accidents. Such a deep heritage was respected and appreciated by him.

Those vassals cultivated many talents over the years, but sadly, the island of Tarth didn't give them many opportunities to showcase themselves. Since losing their status as a kingdom the external strategy of House Tarth was swearing allegiance to the King of the Stormlands and otherwise sticking to their own lands in Tarth, like their vassals. Therefore, they managed to survive thousands of years without major setback or destruction, wasting talents and opportunities.

Involving those old vassal families in his industries was Galladon's first step to change their attitude towards trade and capitalism, liberating the population and talents of their respective families. If losing some benefits can turn their attention towards Sapphire Hall, increasing the construction speed and investment, and further turn their attention towards the trade of Westeros and Essos, everything would have been worth it.

When the Family Meeting ended everybody left with smiles on their faces, expect a few families living close to animal habitats. After gaining the support of most vassals by including them into his industries, he no longer needed to worry about any influence towards his animals.

Nonetheless, to elevate their concerns he promised them to leave some private soldiers in the vicinity of the habitat and to leave all animal leaders, Like Grey and Silver, on the island while he was going to King's Landing. They would be able to control their groups and guarantee safety for the population living close to their habitats.

In the next few weeks Galladon slowly released himself from most of his tasks, giving complete control of the many projects to his subordinates and some towards his mother, mostly financial control.

Soon he received a raven from King's Landing notifying him of the concrete start date of the tournament, April 26th 294 AC. After knowing the concrete date Galladon quickened the process of explaining any necessary steps for the development of Tarth in the next half a year and left the island on February 28th, 294 AC.

Protecting him was his whole guard regiment of 50 people, led by Gustav himself. He further included three Wolf Scouts and five Eagle Hunters, all equipped with additional superior horses from the Horse Farm of Tarth. The wolves belonged to some of Grey's more superior children, able to follow the speed of the horses for quite a while, but they wouldn't have the same kind of endurance, reducing the travel speed a lot.

Galladon didn't bother about that too much, because he wanted to use this opportunity to visit several lords in the Stormlands anyways, starting by his first destination, Storm's End.

On February 28th three large ships, carrying Galladon and his animal team left the port of Evenfall Hall under the eyes of Lord Selwyn, Lady Elena, Galladon's sisters and some important retainers and vassals of House Tarth. They would hopefully reach their destination, Storm's End, within one-three days, heavily depending on the weather in Shipbreaker's Bay. At the same time a fleet of three ships sailed towards King's Landing from the port of Sapphire Hall, carrying some servants led by Galladon's personal steward Alwyn.

Alwyn's job was to prepare a special villa in King's Landing for the arrival of Galladon and his guards and to safely carry a few young wolf cubs and eaglets, mainly used as gifts for potential alliance partners and important members of nobility in Westeros. They further carried sufficient funds for activities in King's Landing and some new specialties of Tarth, like frozen Tarth Meat and new varieties of Sapphire Honey Wine.

The ships were commanded by the new navy talents Harlik and Kalim, making it their first long range voyage led by them, and protected by the combined efforts of Ralf, James and Ryser. They commanded a small elite squad including a Wolf Scout, two Eagle Hunters and some trained orphans from the Stormlands that were not enough to join the Elite Squads, at least not yet. This powerful combination assured Galladon that no accidents would happen to his important shipments on the way to King's Landing.