Ch18. Defense and Development

A year passed since the islands were relocated and a lot changed during that time.

Irene worked alongside Bellatrix, shielding the islands with one massive ward. It was a masterpiece, really.

Irene subtly used her Universe One to create an underground room in the center of the gathering of islands. There, she created a wardstone and by utilizing her knowledge of weirwood, created a ritual connecting the wardstone to the ley-lines. This cleverly solved the problem of energy supply and enabled her to create more powerful, massive wards.

The first ward she connected to the wardstone was the Unplottability ward. She worked for a week with Bellatrix in order to make it perfect. And by the end of said week, the islands vanished from the maps worldwide even though the knowledge that they should be there, remained. Panic ensued among various Lords of Westeros and many exploration parties were sent but those that returned reported they could not find the islands.

Alas, inviting Bellatrix was at the same time the best idea Irene had but at the same time, it was the worst one. After the work was done, the ward raised and hard to tweak, it was 'discovered' that not only will the ward confuse the unmarked passerby, making them sail in circles without finding the islands as Irene intended, but Bellatrix added her own twist.

She added an intent ward and made it so every person with ill-intent towards the islands and her loved ones will be led to deadly natural whirlpools made by Irene for wartime. Needless to say, many exploration parties did not return.

It was also quite embarrassing when some men tried to leave for reaving and actually ended on the seabed due to said ward. Turns out, not everybody was as content with the change of ownership of the islands.

The panic in Westeros eventually died down along with the rage of Robert Baratheon when not even one report of the location of the Iron Islands was positive. With a heavy heart and grudging acceptance, the entire Westeros acknowledged the loss of a region. Due to this, however, their pride will ache for years to come as the king's drinking and whoring worsened. The poor lad was even forbidden calling banners and marching to war because no one knew where to actually march.

Irene and Bella didn't stop raising more and more wards. And after this year, they managed to stack ten offensive wards, fifteen intention gauging wards, ten defensive wards, and even wards that 'activated' natural defenses like whirlpools, raising jagged rocks in certain areas of the ocean, and so on. No fleet would manage to get onto the shore intact.

Their biggest accomplishment was guest-recognition and marking ward tied to various intention-gauging wards that allowed passage through the various defenses whether natural or magical encompassing the islands. This would allow merchants to visit the islands, therefore making it not completely cut off from the outer world. One port town was selected and it would be used as the destination where every marked 'guest' would be led through the unplottable wards, making it a trading town. The guest will, of course, unknowingly have the threat of most offensive wards on them twenty-four seven if they misbehaved or had any ideas.

Albeit Bellatrix pouted, scowled, and loudly protested, only those that already decided to act on their ill-intentions would actually feel the strength of the wards so despite the sheer size and number of the magical defenses they were barely felt by anyone on the island. Most did not even know they were there unless they committed or witnessed a crime.

The next change during this half-year was the reavings, salt wives, and thralls.

They were promptly abolished and forbidden. This, of course, created dissent and many loud protests but surprisingly, they were quickly quenched.

The most surprising of all was the reason the people were appeased. Apparently a new faith arose, believing in the Goddess of the Sea and Land, Irene.

Her widely gaping, astonished expression was very cute when she got to know about it as she gave a speech about abolishing these practices, Thomas reminisced.

Well, of course, a weak confundus-based mind-alteration ward helped too. No one said Thomas and his girls were saints, after all. Nor were they stupid. Affecting the entire population by abolishing deep-seated traditions would one way or another backfire eventually. So, mind-alteration it was...

The change of rocky terrain into a fertile soil prompted the change of lifestyle for the local population. Agriculture was quickly developing under the rule of Lord Cair. Thomas did his best to support this change and provide as much information from his mental library on techniques and ways how to improve the said area.

The islands were just that though, islands.

Due to insufficient area, a few wooden warehouses without any windows were created on the fields with fertile soil. These buildings did not have a floor, so the farmers were able to grow plants inside. Bellatrix then expanded the area by hundred times, provided enough light via magic runes, made sure to add an auto-watering charm, and hooked the entire thing onto the wardstone for a power-charge. Voila, she created magic-saturated crops of superb quality in high quantities. When she understood the impact of her work, she was elated as Thomas made sure to properly... reward her by having their fun while opening the bond connection. Neither could move the following day as they spent it in a catatonic state in bed.

Thralls were given a higher status and became official farmers and miners, getting paid for their work as many mines were created by Thomas when Irene showed him where to find precious metals and diamonds in the mountains.

Bella quickly jumped at another project in the vision of more of those rewards as she enjoyed the feeling of her mind being as if bathed in ecstasy. She started to create mines and tools while Irene focused on teaching Yara how to be a proper governor.

She at first found every important reference for a vanishing cabinet in the bond library and created a special cart where the mined ores were thrown only to appear in a connected cart outside the mine, ready to be processed.

Lesser wards were erected around every mine, to make sure miners would survive during any unexpected event. These wards also highlighted spots of various metals by colors, making the job incredibly easy. The pickaxes were also enchanted to have a greater impact so even the weaker men were able to become miners. Of course, to compensate, Bella the sadist, made her ward put barely noticeable pressure on the miners, unknown to them slowly cultivating their bodies.

You never know when strong men would be needed for an army, she cockily stated when Thomas asked her about it.

Salt wives had a choice of staying with her 'husband' or leaving. Various problems were created due to this because most women didn't have the means to sustain themselves without their men but surprisingly, it was yet again the most unexpected person who found a solution.

When Bella found out her magical crops jumpstarted the magic of the population, she started teaching the women some harmless spells like household charms, Aquamenti, Scourgify, and levitation charms, making their life incredibly easy. They finished their wifey or motherly duties quicker and had more free time.

She then taught them how to magically weave clothes, provided a few easy ways to enchant these clothes with easily remembered runes or enchantments such as temperature-regulation, cushioning, softening, coloring charm, and so on.

She, Thomas's help found the process to create glass and with a little tweaking created an easily learned, magically undemanding spells that would be able to create a glass of better quality than whatever this world was able to produce.

She also selected women who could read and organized classes for children and other driven individuals. The more the magic was used by the wives, the more men accepted it and even started admiring it. But jealousy started to become obvious. Bella used this to her advantage and made it known the most spells can be learned via books. Hence the reading classes were packed.

Bella didn't stop there and with some ambitious women started a chain of taverns and restaurants, providing books on cooking charms, when it became apparent the people are getting wealthier and wealthier but don't have places where they could spend their money.

The women gained a new source of income. Unfortunately for Bellatrix, this made the populace too grateful for their own good, and the new religion gained yet another deity. Bellatrix, the Goddess of Kindness and Knowledge.

Thomas and Irene had a blast when they found out as Bella rolled on the bed in depression, muttering about ruined reputation.

By that time, the faith in the Drowned God was almost dead, and instead, to their eternal embarrassment, Irene's and Bella's statues started marring most city centers.

Thomas, on the other hand, worked with men and focused on rebuilding.

Taking into consideration that magic was available and he had a lot of knowledge in the field available in the bond library, he used it to the fullest.

He first vowed to introduce the wonders of plumbing to the local population!

His playing field was islands so the main focus centered on high massive towers. He forced the resident experts to learn to read via monetary rewards and promises of work and when they were done, he dumped books on construction on them. The process was tedious and lasted half a year until these people were knowledgeable enough to start building his utopia.

He made various runes on small pieces of paper, imbuing them with his weight and gravity control. These papers could be stuck to a heavy load which would then slightly float above the ground and a significant part of its weight would be reduced for while the runes affected it. Manipulation and transport of materials couldn't be easier as the papers with runes were re-usable.

In just a half year, various towers started marring the cities, letting people marvel at the changes each passing day.

Thomas also focused on the local pride, the shipyards. The shipwrights were reluctant to listen to him when he came at first. They had their pride and were revered as the best shipbuilders in the known world! And yet, this barely twenty years old lad came to them, talking about how to make their skills better? How to create bigger, stronger, and faster ships?

They did not laugh at him while beating him to death for the sole reason he was their Lord. Alas, Thomas didn't care about their pride. He gave them an ultimatum and with no other choice, they learned.

They gawked when Thomas gave them the blueprints to Galleons, Frigates, Carracks, and most importantly, various massive Ships of the Line from between the 17th to 19th centuries.

Knowing these ships would need some serious firepower, Thomas started gathering the blacksmiths, giving them knowledge of how to create cannons. This process took quite long because of insufficient tools but after a tedious and long problem solving, a lot of examples made with transfiguration, the blacksmiths finally learned how to create precise metalwork, created forms for the cannons, and didn't need to do them by hand anymore.

The ammunition was also a problem but well, Thomas just selected a few people, gave them a title of an alchemist, provided shovels, and let them shovel the shit in order to create saltpeter needed for gunpowder.

The poor guys were crying crocodile tears while holding their shovels when Irene found out and admonished their Lord for being an idiot. Funnily enough, she did not do so because of their well-being but because this method of creating the gunpowder was tedious and unnecessary.

"We have magic! Why would we need to shovel shit!" Were her words.

Well, in the end, the various blacksmith apprentices were taught how to inscribe explosive runes of various potencies on a wooden core from magic-conductive wood from the new forests on the island and used this instead of the gunpowder as the inner part of cannonballs.

For all his work, to his infinite amusement, Thomas was only dubbed as The Chosen of the Goddesses instead of being called actual god. He was well aware of the jealous looks many men threw at him as he walked the streets. He could only shake his head in bemusement