Alliances

3rd Person POV

Sirius walked confidently into the Great Hall. He is almost 5 ft, 150 cm, although he is only past his sixth name day. He is starting to show some manly looks and some budding muscles, probably due to the extensive training routine he kept following strictly even amid the battles and plans for fortifying Memphis; he still held true to his oath to never miss training for the next decade till he masters his combat skills.

He is yearning to reach his tenth nameday as he expects he will be almost 6 ft, 180 cm, and he will look like an adult. Also, he expects he will start phasing then and will have a major growth spurt and strength enhancement. He grew frustrated after watching a couple of wars and not being able to join the battle. His father banned him from ever joining the battlefield until he is able to fight him to a standstill, something he suspects will not happen for some good years, maybe after phasing he can abuse his superhuman strength to overpower his father's overwhelming swordplay.He just grins as he remembered his first awakening as a warg a week ago.

Unfortunately, he was not like normal wargs who could warg into most animals and even some humans. He basically could only warg into wolves as all his powers stem from Anubis, however, this amplified his abilities greatly so he can control a great number of wolves simultaneously and also for a far greater range. He is still nothing compared to Alaric who is growing into a monster now by the tens of various beasts he could warg into including five elephants found in Meereen who are his mounts now. He also started spying effectively by mixing his own warging using beasts, his novice team of Stark youth wargs, and his normal yet effective spies that he spread throughout Essos with plans to former spread into Westeros later.

Cregan sits comfortably on his ebony throne and resting his hands on his wolf head armrests while pondering his son's plans. He knows that boy has a devilishly smart mind at least in terms of warfare, economy, and civil affairs, yet he lacks severely in politics and intrigue. Well, he is still but a six-year-old boy, so it is not a problem, except that the boy seems to be destined to be a mighty conqueror. He has all the factors aligned, a good foundation at birth by being the righteous heir to the North, The Company of Rose, and now Memphis. He has divine providence, which lies in his green dreams, where he apparently sees the future and the past. He has a superhuman element that lies in his 'Shape Shifting' as he calls it, apparently, his son has so much Wolf blood that he will turn into a giant wolf in a few years... huh, had his father, rose from his rest in the crypts in Volantis he would laugh to his death again seeing Cregan believing this fairytale.

Cregan has logical reasons to doubt such a tale, yet Sirius has proved that he does know certain things that he should not have known. Last year he predicted that the Stormlands's Lord, Steffon Baratheon, will die in a storm in the Narrow Sea while traveling to find a wife to the Crown Prince, he also practiced that the Crown Prince will eventually marry the Dornish girl, Elia Martell. Now, Cregan thinks that unless his young son is a demon who somehow could travel to King's Landing in one night and back and read Aerys's mind, then he has to be a seer. Also, he knows that there were many such green seers in the Stark's history, so he accepted the notion of his son being a seer by now.

His thoughts stop wandering as he sees his son approaching his throne, with his determined and strong steps, totally unmatching his youthful pretty face, he stops a few steps down the dais, and asked casually "Father you asked for me? I am busy so make it short"

Cregan gathered his will to keep himself from punching the cheeky brat of his to the ground, and he hissed loudly "Kid, now we have stabilized ourselves in Memphis and turned from a sellsword company into royal rulers of a great city now tell me what is our next step, I need the full plan, I won't be led by the nose by a tiny lad who still reeks of his mother's milk" He stood up angrily and approached his son as he said the final words. Sirius flinched back wondering what got the old man so agitated suddenly.

Sirius sighed and started iterating his plans for the next four years in full detail. Sirius introduced their plan as a multi-layered developmental plan to cement their rule in Memphis and spread their rule to the whole Slaver's Bay or so let it be called so temporarily till they control it. This will pave the way for Sirius's ambition to try to explore the Doomed City of Valyria later when he phases and has guaranteed that he will keep his life, with his regeneration. He also needs to abolish all signs of Harpy's influence and Old Ghis's, so he decides to introduce the Wolf Head Deity Anubis, who controls fortune, life and death, night and day with his mighty scale.

He decides to build massive granite statues of Anubis like the Titan of Braavos but smaller and erect them on all the gates of Memphis with two guarding each gate. He also erased the temple of graces and replaced it with Lycotemplum or the Temple of The Wolf. He plans to turn Anubis into more of a sigil and a guardian than a deity to just use him as a figurehead to erase any influence of the harpy.

The plan needs to be a multi-pronged plan. Economically, Memphis will start to develop its glass-making factory, wine distilleries, and steel making factories. Glass making will be to make new glass sheets to start infiltrating the North using them as temptation because the Northern men need the glass to make their own Winter Gardens, basically enlarged greenhouses, like the ones in Winterfell, to produce some crops to survive winters and increase their safety in winters. The main targets are House Karstark of Karhold and House Glover of Deepwood Motte. House Glover rules the Wolfwood, which has the largest number of wolves in the Known World and it also has an almost infinite number of ironwood trees, the perfect timber for making ships. Karhold is also a good place to develop as they wave woods and also a natural harbor in case the Manderlys of White Harbor prove to be a problem.

The other use of glass is to produce glass beakers by 'glassblowing', which is a glass- forming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble with the aid of a blowpipe. A person who blows glass is called a glassblower. Glassblowing involves three furnaces. The first, which contains a crucible of molten glass, is simply referred to as "the furnace". The second is called the "glory hole", and is used to reheat a piece in between steps of working with it. The final furnace is called the lehr and is used to slowly cool the glass, over a period of a few hours to a few days, depending on the size of the pieces. This keeps the glass from cracking or shattering due to thermal stress. Historically, all three furnaces were contained in one structure, with a set of progressively cooler chambers for each of the three purposes.

The tip of the blowpipe is first preheated; then dipped in the molten glass in the furnace. The molten glass is "gathered" onto the end of the blowpipe in much the same way that viscous honey is picked up on a honey dipper. This glass is then rolled on the marver, which is a flat slab of marble. This process, called "marvering" forms a cool skin on the exterior of the molten glass blob and shapes it. Then the air is blown into the pipe, creating a bubble. Next, the glassworker can gather more glass over that bubble to create a larger piece. Once a piece has been blown to its final size, the bottom is finalized. Then, the molten glass is attached to a stainless steel or iron rod called a "punty" for shaping and transferring the hollow piece from the blowpipe to provide an opening and to finalize the top.

This complicated process will allow them to have fancy-looking glassware that can be both sold separately as well as being sold with various liquor in it. This is why a distillery will be built. A distillery makes hard alcohol like whiskey, gin, vodka, rum. It starts by combining some basic ingredients such as grains, yeast, and water. Of course, each product's recipe varies. The grains break down and convert the starches to sugars. With the help of the yeast and enzymes, the sugar is converted into alcohol. Once the yeast and sugar have done their jobs, the spent grains are drained off. The remaining liquid is poured into the still. Alcohol's boiling point is lower than water so it vaporizes first. It is then condensing by cooling the vapor and collecting the resulting liquid commonly known as alcohol.

Sirius drew clear plans for his Spirit drinks business and started implementing them. He used freed slaves from both Meereen and Astapor as labor, while also providing them with new jobs and sources of income. This quickly boomed the minor economic wheel inside Memphis and released the council from the burden of feeding all these free slaves. The Council was the current governing body of Memphis. It consists of Garrison Commander Scarab, Army General Meng Wu, Master of War Meng Tian, Master of Coin and Law, Sirius Stark, Alaric Stark as the representative of an imaginary Shadowbinder Spymaster called "The Weaver". He also held the seat of The Young Prince, which was like the Crown Prince in Memphis.

The Council planned to take over Astapor, Yunkai, Ghiscar, and New Ghis to create a coastal Empire of four cities in order from the northernmost, Memphis, Lykopolis, Heliopolis, Alexandria. Alexandria will be a massive port city on New Ghis Island that will have massive trade with the Lys and Tyrosh to the west as well as Qarth and Faros to the east. Land routes will also be connected from Memphis to Volantis, Qohor, Norvus, Pentos, and even Braavos. This leaves Lykopolis and Heliopolis as enclosed cities for military advancement. Heliopolis will be the Naval Command Center as it is the mouth of the Slaver's Bay, while Lykopolis, Wolf City, will be for Land Command Center.

The Steel Making plans were a bit delayed to be started in 280 AC. The alliance of Memphis was brought forward just after the foundation of the city and it was first started with the direct neighbors, the Lhazareen and Dothraki warlords. The Dohtraki was represented by Khal Bharbo who by now, due to our aides and his brilliant son and blood rider Drogo, could amass the largest khalasar of 60,000 men. Memphis will provide the Lhazareen with the protection and basic weaponry as well as any trade they need, while they will relinquish some pastures near the Khyzai Pass as well as sell us some sheep to start Memphis's very own husbandry to provide it with fresh mutton and secure food for the city.

Memphis will also, provide the Dothraki with grains and even forged arakhs, using normal blacksmithing, for horses and lands near the southernmost part of the Dothraki Sea to graze these horses. A plan was formed for two-horse husbandries to be created by using selective breeding to create perfect Warhorses. One would be for strong stocky soldiers which will eventually in a few years show improvement in traits and look like a Percheron horse, which is a breed of French War Horses that look like beasts standing at an average of 6 ft and weighing almost a ton, they are best for creating a real Heavy Cavalry Army with armored horses. The other breed will go for the slender and agile traits shaping it after a couple of generations into what looks like the Arabian Horse, with a small slender body famed for its speed and endurance.

These alliances and plans are the seed to their path of building a real standing army and turn the whole city and future empire into a war machine that strives to increase its military power through all means. They shall prepare for all the wars to come and adopt the ominous herald of endless warfare "Only the dead have seen the end of war."