26 Chapter 26: Asteria
Standing on a cliff-face overlooking the sea, Will couldn't help but smile at the scenery around him.
Sea Dragons Point was a forested peninsula west of the wolfswood that jutted out into the bay of ice.
The point itself was quite high, while below it was surrounded by sharp pointed rocks sticking out of the sea.
It was a natural barrier from the sea, and Will was already imagining how best to utilize it to his advantage.
He of course would want the peninsula to be a bit more protected, but he also didn't want it to stretch much further than it did. On this side of the bay at least.
From looking at his map, Will was already planning on having a similar point come off the Frozen Shore from beyond the wall, and bring it down so there was only about half a mile between it and Sea Dragon Point.
With land like that, it would protect any settlement in the bay from storms and natural disasters, while making it a natural fortress.
Any ships sailing to his base would have to go through the passage, and there is no way that they wouldn't be spotted by anyone in the town.
Plus if he put watch towers on either side of the passage, they would be able to get warned of approaching ships, similar to how they did it in Braavos. The only problem would be raising the ground like that beneath the ocean.
Will figured he could do it, but there had to be a better way than pulling from beneath the ocean, and as he looked at the map, a few ideas came to mind.
With the combination of both earth magic and his Inventory, he figured he could gather incredibly large portions of land from the Frozen Shore and use them to create his point.
Another more evil idea was to help himself to the Iron Islands. He figured with all of the islands put together, it should be enough material to form what he was looking for.
The only problems with that route were that the Iron Islands were a bit further away than he'd like, and he would need to deal with the locals.
They would no doubt bitch and complain that he took their islands, regardless of the cool base he was trying to build. 'Selfish bastards!' Will thought, grumbling in his mind.
Ultimately he decided to just pull large chunks of landmass from the frozen shore towards Sea Dragon Point.
No one could access the Frozen Shore anyway, considering how cold and rough the climate was, so he wouldn't be taking anything from the Free Folk that they could have used to begin with.
Before he got busy with doing that, Will spent a few days walking along the mountain side leading southward towards the Stony Shore.
Closer to Sea Dragons Point, it went higher, but the further south he got, the more he could see the cliffs dropping in elevation.
Going southward, once he left the cluster of trees that was the Wolfswood, he only had to go for another day before the mountains completely disappeared.
It was still a little over a day's ride until he got to the Stony Shore from here, and that was the only other access to the north from the sea along the western coast. Everywhere else was either a steep cliffside or they were surrounded by jagged rocks.
There might be some people who could try and dock here at the Stony Shore and try to move up by land to his base, but he figured that was unlikely.
The terrain sucked enough for him, and that was with Earth magic. There were some small roads that led further inland, but they went to Torrhen's Square, or possibly to Barrowtown, places Will didn't give two shits about.
Getting back to the point, Will scoped out the area that would be the town, and he had to say, he was decently impressed.
Using earth magic, he could feel a number of large aquifers of fresh water deep below the surface. He could use his newly acquired pumps to tap into those and have fresh water.
They were also way too deep to risk hitting with any sewage pipes, so that was good. Speaking of sewage, he wondered where the hell he would pipe it to.
With how bad the stench was in Kings Landing, he sure as fuck didn't want a repeat of something like that. He also didn't want to just pipe it into the bay, as that would be where all the ships would be.
After scouting around, and checking the map, Will decided to just use earth magic to create something that would go through the mountain eastward towards the Sunset Sea.
It was angled a bit southward, pointing towards the Stony Shore, but it was better there than in his bay. With that settled, Will didn't see any other reason to hold off on construction.
Jumping aboard a ship, Will crossed to the Frozen Shore in less than an hour, and he couldn't help but smile at the sight.
It was no wonder that the Free Folk never tried doing anything over this way, as the cliffs to reach the Frozen Shore were over a hundred feet high, completely covered in ice.
It was damn near a death sentence for most people to try and do anything over this way. Thankfully he wasn't most people.
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Three months after he began his project, Will was staring at his creation with a shit eating grin on his face. It was basically like a landbridge connecting the Frozen Shore and Sea Dragon Point, only it looked like someone took a bite out of it.
The gap was about 500 yards wide, just over a quarter of a mile. Will was going to make it a bit wider, but he had so much rock and dirt left over, he decided to shorten the gap a bit.
The whole landbridge was almost a 100 miles long, and it was a good 150 yards wide with a height of 150 feet. It wasn't the size of the Wall by any means, but it was the next best thing.
Plus it was made almost entirely out of rock, and it was much thicker, so it had that going for it. On the bay side, the landbridge sloped down gradually, while on the western side, it was a straight drop from the top.
Below the cliff, jagged rocks stuck out of the water, running all along the land bridge, all except where the gap was, which had been intentional.
Most of the top of the land bridge was inaccessible, but there was about 500 yards that flattened out before it began to slope and move about, but this was so people didn't try going beyond the wall, and the people beyond the wall didn't try coming here.
Admiring his handy work, Will's gaze was locked on the gap, dividing the bridge with the point, and he couldn't help but think that something was missing.
It just looked so plain, and didn't do his bridge any justice. After staring at it for what felt like an eternity, it finally struck him. With a quick check to his inventory to make sure he still had enough rock, which he did, Will began to get to work.
At the end of the land bridge and the point, Will built large round towers that could only be accessed from the bay side, then beside them he built two massive statues that rivaled the Titan of Braavos in height.
However each of the knights had a shield and spear, the shields resting on the ground, while the spears bridged the gap between the two, as though they were standing shoulder to shoulder in defense of their home.
The tips of the spears crossed, and it gave off a sort of comradery feel to it. The whole thing took over a week, as Will was being very meticulous about it.
With the knights being made of stone, Will had to use metal spears and such to reinforce certain areas to keep it all together, like rebar in concrete.
The Titan of Braavos was made of granite and bronze, but with how his own knights were built, Will didn't think they would lose out in strength.
On the towers, Will made a large room at the top of each of them, hopefully to be able to use them as sort of lighthouses in the future. He had no idea how to even go about building something like that, but he could always hire some researchers for that. Most likely he would have to get someone in Myr to do it.
With the bay work done, Will moved off towards where he would build his town. First things first was the harbor.
He built it in such a way that it could be defended, but at the same time allow for a market to be built along the shore and ships to be docked.
There were ten stone docks that went out into the bay, allowing ten ships to be docked at once. There was a holding yard built into the bay where ships could be anchored and stored, but it wasn't big enough to support a steady movement of people.
The shipyard wasn't anything special, but that was because he was basing it off the places he had seen from a distance. He had no idea the tools or equipment that would be needed, but he would have to wait until someone more versed on the subject came here.
Ships weren't in any particular high demand right now considering he already had a grand fleet stored away inside his inventory, but he might need to make repairs on his own ships in the future, so it would really come in handy.
Next Will had to decide on how big he wanted this place to be. He didn't want anything the size of the major cities in Westeros, but he didn't want something tiny either.
Thinking it over, he used Winterfell as sort of a reference for the size. Will built two different walls that surrounded the place. The outer wall was about 20 feet wide and 80 feet tall, while the inner wall was 25 feet wide and 100 feet tall.
The walls were only about 50 yards away from each other, but it allowed for soldiers on both walls to attack at the same time, without the inner wall hitting the outer wall.
And if the outer wall was ever breached, it was like a death trap to be inside the gap between the two. If an explosion ever went on inside of it, the blast would be contained inside there and swallow any one inside of it, hopefully killing them.
There were multiple other uses for this style of defense, and Will couldn't help but want some opposing force to attack him so he could test out his ideas.
With the limits of the town laid out, Will began to work on leveling out the place, and grading it in certain areas to promote draining when it rained and snowed. With the trees and shrubbery all cleared out, Will could see best where to put everything.
The first home he built, was of course his own home. It was against the cliffside of Sea Dragon Point, looking like a regular mansion instead of a castle.
This of course was mostly just the outward appearance of his home, as the real thing stretched inside the mountain, though he wouldn't be telling anyone this fact, except maybe Elia, who in turn would most likely tell Oberyn and her kids and-. 'Okay, a bit more people might know about it than I'd like.' Will thought, a little annoyed at the people who might barge on into his home.
His little mansion looked like it sat on a little hill overlooking the town, giving it a grand feel to it, and Will couldn't help but marvel at the sight of it.
Just his home alone took almost a full week, although that might have been because he was making use of the abundance of marble and other cool looking material.
The entire mansion had marble floors, granite walls, reinforced pillars with sticks of metal holding everything together, and a few must have amenities.
There were 3 of his newly gotten pumps inside the place alone, each of them tapped into an underground aquifer. Putting them in was much more simple than his original test one. It had been a bit more of a challenge.
Just to make sure he could do it, Will went a bit outside the walls before finding a place with a good amount of underground water.
The man who gave him the instructions of how to install them said there was a process in finding out the right place, but with magic he already knew the best places.
Following his self-made instruction manual, Will dug down until he reached the required depth, but then all of the sudden he could feel the water rising without the pump even being in there. If not for his magic then it would have burst right in his face.
Keeping the water down, he used magic to maneuver the deep rod in place that was connected to the pump, then inserted it deep within the earth.
After that, it took a bit of work to seal around the piping to make sure nothing could get back inside the aquifer and contaminate it, then it was onto the inspection. Going over everything, it looked like it was just as the guy told him.
After crossing his fingers, Will began to operate the hand pump. It took a bit, but before long brown water was coming out of it. This was to be expected from what the man told him, and he just had to keep going until the muddied water was cleared up.
Sure enough, after about 10 minutes of arduous cranking, crystal clear water began to pour out from the spout, causing Will to laugh uproariously. If anyone had seen him, they would no doubt think he was a lunatic!
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A few months had passed since he built his mansion, and Will was now looking out over the place that would be his home. There were only two dozen or so buildings, but it was already shaping up to be a wonder for any to behold.
The main sewage line had been constructed, leading out into the sea on the other side of Sea Dragon Point.
Will had gone the extra mile to make so nothing could ever get in through it like Tyrion and the Unsullied had to get into Casterly Rock, covering the entrance with a few tons of stone, while making it so it could still flow underneath a barred off area into the water.
After the whole drainage work was done, it forced Will to make some changes around the area, just to make sure that things would all drain properly and not back up into people's homes.
That was one thing he had been adamant on doing. Every home had at least one shitting room, and one water pump. The water pumps were all in kitchens, and it would be easy enough to just carry a bucket of water to the make-shift toilets to wash everything away.
Each house had two drains, one for the basin beneath the pump, and shitter. It was more than most people could dream of having, but Will only did this much because it was taking so damn long.
If people could hear him complaining, they might just kill him in rage. Here he was, constructing homes better than anyone in Westeros could ever hope for, in a matter of hours.
It took practically no time at all to set the foundation, so Will had spent a few days getting a few foundations with the pipes and pump already in the ground, then he raised the walls the next day.
The roofs were the hardest part for him, because he had to make sure that they were reinforced enough that they wouldn't suddenly collapse and kill the occupants. He had to keep referring back to the masonry books he had purchased in the path, which was one of the reasons it took so damn long.
There was also the spacing for the buildings, the storm drains in the road, and the roads around the town. They weren't as smooth as glass, as Will knew that carts and livestock all needed traction, though he had to learn that the hard way when he slipped and almost cracked his head open. It turned out there was a reason most roads in his previous life weren't that smooth.
Everything was made of stone, but it looked more like the paved roads of his old world. He didn't know the chemical mix for asphalt, but if/when it ever did get discovered, he would let the people of the town fix this shit.
He couldn't even begin to fathom how long this would take without magic, and he now had a better appreciation for the people who built Winterfell and the other cities here.
It was agonizing work, and that was with magic, so to do all of this without it, you had to be a special kind of person.
One building that had taken a particularly long time to build, had been the bath houses. Will had built two of them, one solely for men, while the other was just for women.
Each bath house had almost 50 small rooms with a basin big enough to fit a grown man. Keeping people clean would hopefully reduce sickness, and would keep the people from smelling like they rolled around in shit on a daily basis.
Will bathed frequently, at least once a day, and to be around other people who probably never bathed in their lives was a bit revolting, and was one of the main reasons he never stuck around people for too long.
Drox had thought him strange for bathing so often, but there was really nothing the boy could have done at the time, especially when he was also forced to bath daily.
Thankfully he had started on Aegon and Rhaenys early, and now they also enjoyed their daily bath time.
Will wasn't sure if just the two bath houses would be enough, but if they needed more, he could always help construct another.
Unlike Winterfell, there was no natural hot spring here, so he had to use the same thing the Braavosi used. It was basically a metal water tower with a furnace/boiler under it.
One pipe on the top had a tube that went down to the bottom where the cold water would go, while the other pipe took the hot water on the top and carried it down to wherever was needed.
There were 5 pumps in each bath house alone, and Will figured they would be running most of the time. The bath houses were located around the center of town, so people would hopefully not have to go too far to clean up.
Will also built three Inns, each with 25 rooms, 5 bathrooms, and 3 pumps. One was by the harbor, the other by the Eastern Gate, while the last one was by the Southern gate.
Those were only legal ways to get into the city and not get shot down, so he figured it would be best if new travelers could find accommodations easily.
He wondered if he would even get travelers to fill the rooms, but then he brushed the thought aside. He didn't even have people at the moment, so thinking about travelers at this point was already a bit much.
Thinking of people, he wondered where the hell he would get people to live here, but then he remembered the Stoney Shore.
There were a few hundred people living in tiny fishing villages, and Will was willing to bet that many of them would come here in a heartbeat if given the chance.
I mean what's not to like? Better living, more protection from the IronBorn, better ships, closer to civilization, and they're further from the Iron Islands.
Despite it being a time of peace, they would occasionally get harassed by the IronBorn when they went out to fish, and it wasn't that uncommon for people to not return back home at all.
With that thought in mind, Will decided to put construction on hold for a few days while he went southward to see if he could get some settlers.
If he failed here, he could always try Deepwood Motte and Bear Island. They were even closer to his town than the Stony Shore, only he doubted their living conditions were even half as bad as the fishing villages.
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It didn't take long for Will to reach the first fishing village, and he couldn't help but feel his chances of recruiting people had gone up from what he originally thought.
There were about 40 houses bunched together, all of them looking to barely be held together by yarn. For a fishing village, there were no docks, simply a rocky shoreline, which was true to its namesake.
There were no major roads in and out of it, just a few small dirt pathways. As for animals, there were a few pigs, goats, chickens and cows, but no horses.
Riding into the place, a few people stopped to wave at him, and Will waved back, wondering why anyone would choose to live here.
A few people looked a bit malnourished, but nothing unfixable. Before long, Will had seen everything he needed to, to know that these living conditions weren't even fit for animals, let alone people.
Riding over to the nearest person, a young boy about 10 or so, Will asked, "Is there anyone in charge of this place?"
The boy looked a little startled that some stranger was talking to him, but he seemed to stand his ground pretty good.
"Aye! Mr. Jenkins! He's like the Lord, but not really. We ain't got no lord here." The boy said, even going so far as to point towards the shoreline at some old man dragging a small row boat behind him.
"Thanks." Will said, tossing the kid a copper penny before he nudged Trojan in the man's direction. A few seconds later, Trojan was standing in front of the man, who was now staring at Will.
"What do ya need, Lad?" Jenkins asked, setting his little boat down.
"My name is William Castian. I was wondering if I could talk to you for a bit?" Will asked, stepping down from his saddle. He was a little puzzled when Jenkins seemed to tense up, and his eyes widened to an unnatural degree.
"It's you...." Jenkins whispered, looking at Will like he was looking at a ghost. It was then that Will realized there might be some wild stories going around about him, and he couldn't help but wonder if this would hurt his chances of recruiting people or not.
"Before you get all crazy, just know that-" Will was interrupted before he could finish his words when Jenkins dropped to his knees, bowing his head deeply.
"M'Lord Castian!" Jenkins said, sounding as though he was in prayer, while at the same time scared out of his mind.
'I guess this might improve my chances after all.' Will thought plainly.
Will had no idea how far his name had spread, or the fear and reverence some people held for him.
As it turns out, many of the people he had killed in the Stepstones had northern prisoners, who Will had inadvertently set free.
There were many people who thought Will's feats were over exaggerated, but there were some who thought he was a descendant of the old gods!
However, it didn't matter if people revered or feared him, as everyone from all three villages had accepted the offer to relocate to his new town.
Will of course had to bring out one of his ships to carry everyone, as a lot of people were not in the best shape to travel.
It was a bit cramped all on one ship, but Will knew they wouldn't be on the thing for an extended period of time. All in all though, there were 746 people who agreed to relocate, of which, most of them were capable young workers, other than a little malnourishment.
As the ship sailed from the village farthest south, someone shouted out about a ship heading their way. With just a glance it was obvious to tell that it was the Iron Born, if the giant Kraken on the sails were anything to go off of.
At the sight of the approaching IronBorn ship, people began to panic.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!!" Will roared, silencing the people on the ship, all of them with their eyes on him.
"I didn't get to be feared in the Stepstones because I cried like a bitch and shit myself! Especially not in front of sea food!!" Will shouted out, loud enough for everyone on board to hear him.
Then before their very eyes, Will hopped over the side of the ship, the water rising up to meet him. All of the people ran over to the side of the ship to see what he was going to do, only to have their jaws practically hit the deck at what they saw.
A wave carried Will over to the approaching IronBorn ship, then just as he was about to get there, a demon made of water materialized around him, shooting tentacles out of its mouth, each of them grabbing hold of an IronBorn raider, then pulling them down into the depths of hell.
None of the IronBorn came back to the surface, and before everyone's eyes, the ship vanished in a blink.
A few seconds later when Will got back to his ship, everyone could only stare mutely at him, clearing a path for him as he approached.
Will walked over to the top deck of the ship near the wheel, then looked around to the people around him.
"Listen up!! I'm not going to roll over and let people walk all over me, and I don't expect you people to either! If someone comes to challenge you, just know that you're not alone!! If you band together as one, no one will be able to touch you!!" Will shouted, going on about how if they were willing to fight, he would fight beside them.
It also helped improve their view of him when he gave most of the men fine weapons, while at the same time passing out a bunch of food to everyone around him.
The people didn't think their opinion of Will could get any higher, until the land bridge started coming into view. Before long the figures of the knights could be seen, and people couldn't help but stare at the magnificent sight.
"The Knights of Asteria!" Will shouted, pulling all eyes to him. "As-Asteria?!" One man asked, unsure of the name.
"The name of your new home! These are the knights who guard her gates!!" Will said, a smile on his face. He had thought about what he would call this place, but his mind kept going back to this name.
It didn't matter that this was a new life, and he had a new family, he would never forget his old family no matter what.
Whenever he called Elia, "mother", a small part of him grumbled inside, about how he was giving up his true mother's memory, but there was no way he could forget her.
His mother, Asteria Castian, named for the Goddess of falling stars and the night herself, would forever be remembered in his heart, and now whenever he looked out over his city.
He couldn't protect her before, but he would fight the Lord of Light himself to defend her this time!!
