Chapter 187: War Situation and Marketing
The Riverlands, that fertile expanse nestled between the Trident and its many tributaries, is acknowledged across the Seven Kingdoms as a land of plenty... yet, compared to the neighboring Reach, which possesses similar abundance, its destiny has been far more tragic.
Situated in the exact center of Westeros, this quintessential land of four wars has never known long-term peace in its history. In the millennium since House Mudd was extinguished by the invading Andals, this strife-torn region failed to be unified by a powerful local dynasty—unlike the Reach under Garth Greenhand—and thus completely failed to foster a unique sense of regional belonging or mutual identity among its nobility. When its fragmentation finally ended, it was through the humiliation of being conquered by outsiders. After centuries of exploitation by the Storm Kings, they finally drove them out, only to leap from the wolf's den into the tiger's mouth, falling under the century-long rule of the Kings of the Iron Islands—the line of Harren the Black.
It was not until Aegon the Conqueror arrived with his dragons that the Riverlands, by being decisive enough to switch sides, finally gained a local ruling house: the Tullys.
This land, scarred by war and the agony of foreign enslavement, could be described in modern terms as a people so broken by abuse that they have forgotten how to stand, having grown accustomed to kneeling. Even during three hundred years of stability under Targaryen rule, the region failed to cultivate a local character or presence capable of rivaling the other kingdoms. It possessed neither a fierce folk tradition nor legendary heroes; even the ruling family grew accustomed to leaning on others through marriage alliances. From the smallfolk to the high lords, there was a lack of bloody resolve, replaced by a habit of pinning their hopes on the protection of allies won through the marriage bed.
Edmure Tully led his army in a mindless pursuit to intercept the raiding parties Tywin had sent to burn and pillage, yet in the end, it was only when his allies arrived that these mere thousands of Lannister troops were driven from his lands, making the Riverlands a laughingstock to all of Westeros.
Laughingstock or not, the arrival of a massive number of summoned vassals and allied forces caused the situation to reverse rapidly. With the arrival of the eastern Riverlands forces led by House Frey and the knights of the Vale, the outnumbered Lannister foraging parties lost their room for maneuver and were forced to withdraw from the combat zone.
After pausing briefly in the ravaged western Riverlands to wait for the Northern vanguard and arrange for grain transport, the allied forces began their westward march toward the Golden Tooth—the vital eastern shield of the West—singing war songs as they went. Within days, they arrived at the fortress and began encamping, preparing for the assault.
Simultaneously, the Crownlands army marched along the Goldroad to the walls of Deep Den. The fleets of the Shield Islands and the Arbor set sail northward to blockade Lannisport, while the vanguard of the Reach's land forces moved north along the Ocean Road, crossing the border into the theater of war and quickly reaching Crakehall—the crucial southern defense line for Lannisport.
War was imminent. Besieged from three sides, House Lannister faced its greatest military test in history, but the enemies were far more numerous than that. Contrary to the Vale's Alliance of Righteous Men, who enjoyed widespread sympathy, Tywin's years of aggression and iron-fisted rule had offended many. The Stormlands army was already marching along the Goldroad to reinforce the Crownlands, and even Dorne—usually disinterested in external disputes—had gathered over ten thousand troops. They moved northward through the Reach with murderous intent, seemingly determined to slaughter the Lions in vengeance for Princess Elia.
As the armies of the six kingdoms advanced aggressively, the villages and minor houses on the periphery of Lannister lands surrendered at the first sight of them. The West was famous for its gold rather than its vast territory and lacked strategic depth. Consequently, within days, House Lannister's effective control shrunk by half, leaving them only the narrow strip of land between the Golden Tooth, the Crag, and Crakehall—a small area hemmed in by mountains and the Sunset Sea. Tens of thousands of Lannister troops were now compressed into a tiny space no larger than the Night's Watch Gift, and the family's survival became precarious in the blink of an eye.
While overwhelming superiority was established on the front lines, the eastern coast of Westeros began to suffer frequent raids by pirates of suspicious origin. Although not a crippling blow, the buzzing of these flies was truly annoying. To counter this harassment, the fleets of the Royal Navy, Dragonstone, and the Stormlands did not bypass Dorne to join the siege of the West. Instead, they left their ports to patrol the coastal waters of vital sea lanes, frequently sending back reports of encounters and skirmishes with pirate ships.
...
The war to extinguish the Lion was proceeding at full tilt, and the disparity in strength was so vast that no one doubted the final outcome. The wealth of the West was no myth; even the surrendered villages and castles, though already squeezed once by their liege lord Tywin, yielded considerable loot to the allied vanguard. One could only imagine the glistening gold that awaited them once Lannisport and Casterly Rock were breached. With such a bright outlook and no risk of falling into a long quagmire, the war's impact on the Night's Watch industries was much smaller than anticipated. Aside from the customary price hike for military supplies, daily life continued almost exactly as before. Egger even began to wonder if his order to cancel the third paper mill had been a mistake.
Fortunately, the eggs in multiple baskets plan proceeded smoothly. The improved lipsticks and soaps met with an excellent response upon hitting the market. While not as obscenely profitable as papermaking, their money-making potential was already enough to make both old and new industries green with envy. It was good news that the repurposed third paper workshop hadn't lost money; as for how to handle the undiminished orders for books... at worst, he would simply commission another factory.
In the central plaza of King's Landing, a sea of people gathered, with onlookers stretching as far as the eye could see. A grand spectacle featuring a Night's Watchman... or rather, a wight as the protagonist, was being performed, and today was the final act. This was a massive marketing event that would determine the profitability of the Night's Watch industries for the foreseeable future. Despite his busy schedule, Egger found the time to personally bring Nina to the scene.
...
As early as the day the wight entered King's Landing, he had begun calculating how to retrieve it for commercial use. To his surprise, before he could even act, the Hand of the King had unwittingly ordered the wight's return. It would have been a waste of a godsend not to exploit such an opportunity.
However, when he saw the caged wight again, Egger immediately realized that its expulsion from the Red Keep as an evil object wasn't just luck; it was inevitable.
During the days he had been imprisoned in the Red Keep's cells, it had begun to rot.
To be precise, the wight's arms had begun to decay.
On the day the riots broke out in King's Landing, Eddard Stark had personally drawn his sword and hacked off one of the wight's arms. Later, whether to show it to some important figure or simply for safety, its other arm had also been severed by someone. The two arms hung from iron hooks in the corners of the cage, swinging back and forth. One was already crawling with maggots and stank abominably; while the other could still move, its condition was not much better.
Egger had previously speculated that the wight would die once its ice magic was exhausted. These rotting arms were now strong evidence for his theory.
The armless wight was still jumping and thrashing in the cage. Having suffered countless verification stabs from various swords, its chest was riddled with holes; its heart might well have been reduced to ribbons. Undeniably, such a living specimen was more useful to the Night's Watch, but given that the ice magic within it was constantly dissipating and it could fall apart into rot at any moment, Egger decisively chose to let it burn out its remaining value in a more sensational way: a public exhibition, followed by its execution with dragon glass.
Half of the City Watch were now allies of the Night's Watch industries, and the other half intended to seek Egger's protection. Under these circumstances, describing the convenience of getting things done as fast as possible. With just a brief mention of the matter, Allar Deem had scurried about, coordinating with other captains in the city, and quickly settled everything for Egger.
The Gold Cloaks cleared the plaza in the heart of King's Landing, in front of the Alchemists' Guildhall—driving away peddlers, tearing down unauthorized structures, and clearing trash—specifically for the Night's Watch's temporary display of the wight. Every morning, a squad of guards from the Night's Watch logistics department would tow the cage here, exhibiting it until they withdrew in the afternoon. They used the seeing is believing method to let those who still refused to believe in the supernatural see with their own eyes the crisis facing the defenders of the Wall.
The act was not static. As the release date for dragonglass products approached, the simple display finally turned into a demonstration.
With the wight suspended in the cage by chains passed through its body, they hacked off a leg, circling the stage while holding the still-moving limb for all to see. Then, they would thrust an obsidian dagger into it in public, completely extinguishing its life, before finally burning it with fire.
The next day, they hacked off the other leg and destroyed it in the same manner. This shocking performance caused a massive stir and sparked endless controversy. Ordinary people were stunned by limbs that moved despite being separated from the body, while the bleeding hearts were outraged by the bloody and cruel scene... none of that mattered. The most practical and critical point was that hundreds of King's Landing residents had seen or even touched a part of a wight from up close. The heat of the rumors concerning the hell on earth beyond the Wall was stoked to a new high once again!
On the third day—today—the final day of this horrific performance, the armies of the six kingdoms on the front lines began their formal offensive against the West, and Egger's dragonglass products officially went on sale. The Night's Watch industries were to perform a public demonstration: how to use the wight's nemesis, dragonglass, to kill it once and for all.
...
The crowd was already shoulder-to-shoulder, packed so tightly that not a drop of water could pass. People were everywhere in all directions, talking excitedly and jostling to get closer to the stage. It took a hundred Gold Cloaks exerting their maximum effort just to maintain order. Most onlookers still didn't know what dragonglass was; they only knew from hearsay that today was their last chance to see the wight.
Surrounded and protected by his security detail, Egger was still swayed back and forth by the crowd. After some hesitation, he tapped Nina on the shoulder and signaled his subordinates to escort them away. As the big boss of the Night's Watch industries, he already possessed fame and prestige far exceeding his actual power. It was time to maintain a suitable level of low-profile mystery to preserve his deterrence.
He shouldn't and wouldn't participate in this kind of show personally, and having already killed an Other, he truly didn't care much for the result.
Withdrawing from the crowd, they stood far off on the steps of the Alchemists' Guildhall, looking out at the wooden platform in the center of the plaza.
The wight, already reduced to a mere torso, was suspended from the top of the cage by iron chains, yet it still writhed and snarled, swinging like a pendulum. As a soldier in black holding a spear stepped onto the stage, the crowd grew even more excited. The man on stage raised his hand for silence before beginning to shout at the top of his lungs. From a hundred meters away, it was impossible to hear exactly what he was saying, but Egger and Nina didn't care. Every word of every line the man was saying now, would say in the next second, and would say after the deed was done had been determined after Nina consulted with department management and approved by Egger himself. Their presence today was less about watching the show and more about coming out together for some fresh air to relax nerves frayed by intense work.
"My lord, I just thought of something. After this 'wight-killing' show is over, we could hold an auction," Nina said. Under Egger's requirement, she still wore makeup; though it was light, it made her look radiant in the sunlight. "We could sell the spear that killed the wight, from tip to shaft. It's bound to fetch a great price!"
Egger raised an eyebrow, slightly surprised. "Hmm... good idea. Send someone over to notify them to announce this."
On the distant wooden platform, the presenter, having finished his shouting, raised the weapon with its obsidian spearhead and aimed it at the wight in the cage. The clamor grew intense, but the wight could neither beg for mercy nor dodge. Under the gaze of everyone, the man in black took a step forward and thrust the obsidian tip deep into the wight's chest.
The air went silent for a moment, as if everyone in the plaza had inhaled simultaneously. A second later, the noise erupted again. Under the gaze of countless eyes, the wight in the cage... that humanoid creature that had writhed and snarled despite taking countless sword thrusts in front of everyone, finally went still.
The wight-slaying hero pulled out his spear, wiped the corpse oil from the tip, and began to speak loudly again. Egger knew this was the introduction to obsidian. Seizing this moment of universal attention, he was informing those who hadn't heard the news yet: this "frozen fire" possessed the power to kill wights, Others, and all manner of ancient spirits, as well as the ability to ward off evil and expel the cold. He was also providing information on where they could be purchased.
"You've reminded me; simply selling dragonglass as a ward against evil seems too narrow a channel. We need to find a way to open up more profitable avenues." Egger watched the employee on the high platform working hard to pitch the product, and a spark of inspiration hit him. "Go back and arrange for the production of some obsidian daggers, spearheads, and arrowheads. Then, spread the word through the taverns and brothels we control. Tell everyone that the civilian goods the Night's Watch industries are selling publicly in stores are low-grade scraps. The obsidian weapons the Night's Watch uses in actual combat on the front lines are of much higher quality, with purer internal energy and better effects for warding off evil and killing wights—but they are strictly controlled and can only be bought through 'special channels'."
"And then we can get employees to pretend they're 'insiders' who stole military-grade obsidian weapons and sell them on the side!" Nina's eyes lit up. "And we can hike the price even higher!"
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