Chapter 316

Just like the cyclical nature of progress in civilization, all stories seem to encounter their share of twists and turns. The sudden death of Jeor Mormont had stalled the Night’s Watch on the frontlines of this life-and-death war for months. If there was any silver lining, it was that nearly all factions during the election process had maintained a baseline of restraint and a sense of the greater good. “Humanity’s march forward may not have advanced, but at least it didn’t regress into chaos from infighting.”

Now, at last, things were back on track—or rather, Aegor’s track. With an optimistic outlook, one could argue that having someone with grand ambitions directly at the helm, rather than working from the shadows, might ensure the game is played more decisively.
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Aegor’s order for Cotter Pyke to wait for explicit permission before returning to Eastwatch was straightforward in purpose: to ensure the Iron Bank’s grain shipment arrived without incident, turning one last variable into a certainty.

Roughly twenty days after receiving a discreet notification from the Iron Bank, the long-awaited grain fleet finally arrived at the Night’s Watch’s port without issue. With several hundred men stationed at Eastwatch from Crown's Rest to ensure security, the unloading process was remarkably smooth. In just a few days, thousands of gold dragons’ worth of grain—enough to feed all the settlers of the Gift for weeks—was offloaded and transported to the newly activated fortress of Beacon Hold, populated entirely by loyal reformist Night’s Watch brothers and hillfolk, with no dissenters in sight. The supplies now awaited better weather for distribution to Crown's Rest.

With this, the power transition in the Gift was complete. No one, overtly or covertly, could disrupt the status quo any longer. After dispatching a messenger to inform Cotter that he could resume his post at Eastwatch, Aegor packed his belongings and journeyed to Crown's Rest—a town that, a year ago, had been nothing more than a ruin and was now the lone settlement in the Gift and the new headquarters of the Night’s Watch.

Here, in a fortress filled entirely with his own loyalists, the first Lord Commander neither born in Westeros nor elected at Castle Black—and the first to rule without residing at the Wall—was poised to oversee the Gift remotely. His goal was to transform it into Westeros’ tenth great region, after the Seven Kingdoms, the Iron Islands, and the Stepstones.
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Ambition was a fine thing, but reality was harsh. While the Gift’s inability to produce its own grain seemed like Aegor’s biggest obstacle to independence, the truth was grimmer: the Gift produced nothing.

The region had yet to begin any activity that could be called “production.” Thus far, all the Gift’s settlers and the Night’s Watch had relied entirely on resources from the Night’s Watch’s own holdings and the generosity of Northern lords. Their so-called “work” had been limited to laying foundations, building infrastructure, and preparing for war.

These efforts were necessary, of course, but they generated no wealth or sustainable operations to maintain the system.

The Night’s Watch could survive without producing anything—it was, after all, their purpose. But the Gift could not.

The Iron Bank had loaned the Watch 100,000 gold dragons, a staggering amount at first glance. But divided among the 40,000 people in the Gift, it came to only about two and a half gold dragons per person. With grain prices rising, even an optimistic estimate suggested this sum would barely keep the Gift fed, let alone develop it into a self-sustaining region capable of weathering the coming invasion of the Others.

To win over the brothers of the Night’s Watch—especially after raiding Castle Black’s strategic grain reserves to stabilize the Gift’s economy—Aegor needed to prove his leadership by opening new sources of income.

In simpler terms, Aegor needed to not only command the Wall’s defense but also act like a reformist cadre from his previous world, leading the settlers to prosperity.
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With roads built and the Gift’s soil fertile, agriculture seemed a natural solution. But with winter already here, farming and livestock rearing were off the table for now. Instead, Aegor turned to other resources: labor and natural wealth.

The Gift had plenty of idle hands. Aegor immediately ordered the Night’s Watch’s wandering crows to scout for areas that might require extra laborers. However, in a world with low productivity and cheap human life, the idea of exporting labor seemed more like wishful thinking. Aegor had other plans.

He wrote to the Night’s Watch holdings in King’s Landing, ordering Dragonstone’s dragonglass mines to ramp up production and begin shipping raw obsidian to the Wall. Crafting dragonglass items required little skill, and with so many idle settlers, why hire laborers in King’s Landing when the Gift’s residents could handle the work?

Weapons made from dragonglass could serve as vital anti-Other armaments, while the scraps and fragments could be fashioned into trinkets for sale in the North and across the Narrow Sea. With the right marketing—emphasizing dragonglass’s ability to ward off evil and combat humanity’s enemies—there would likely be no shortage of buyers.

The plan seemed sound, but Aegor knew dragonglass wasn’t unique to Dragonstone. Several mines in Essos reportedly had untapped deposits, left alone due to low demand. Even if the demand for dragonglass surged, Dragonstone’s supply wouldn’t dominate the market for long. Worse still, relying solely on dragonglass would violate the fundamental principle of diversification.

Dragonglass could provide income, but it wasn’t a sustainable or primary solution. For a lasting foundation, Aegor turned his thoughts to mining.

In a world where metals were scarce, the shortage lay not in raw ore but in processed metals. Selling unrefined ore was unprofitable, but establishing a smelting industry in the Gift could provide the region with a much-needed advantage. Whether for self-sufficiency or trade, processing metals locally would be far cheaper than importing them.
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Aegor had planned ahead during the prolonged election process, ensuring that the groundwork for a smelting operation was in place. Skilled artisans had been recruited from the South, and other preparations were ready. All that remained was to confirm the Gift’s autonomy and begin.

As he reviewed reports, the town’s mayor, Yarm, approached with an update. “Our survey teams are still searching for viable mineral deposits. Plains rarely yield ores, and the lack of established mountain roads and the harsh weather will delay the process.”

“But,” Yarm continued, “the hillfolk working in Crown's Rest mentioned finding exposed copper and coal veins in the mountains they once called home. After meeting with their leaders, they’ve confirmed these deposits and agreed to let us mine them—on the condition that we hire their clansmen as workers.”

“The request is reasonable,” Aegor said after a moment’s thought. “But copper? What’s the quality and scale? How difficult will it be to extract? And how far is it from the Gift?”

“From their description, they’ve only worked with surface-level copper—what they call ‘natural copper.’ They’d occasionally throw small chunks into their fires to make trinkets. We’ll need our experts to assess the mine, but it should be easy to extract. The site is less than a hundred miles southwest of Crown's Rest.”

“Hmm... Copper’s more expensive than iron, but it’s less versatile. Ideally, we’ll find iron deposits, but this will do for now. The process of smelting copper and iron isn’t that different, and getting the settlers accustomed to large-scale smelting is more important. Start with the copper and keep searching for iron. Let’s see how quickly we can get this operation running.”

“Understood.” Yarm nodded.

“Now,” Aegor said, standing, “take me to see the progress on our other projects. It’s time I checked for myself.”