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Post by The Forgotten God on Jul 5, 2015 12:28:10 GMT -5
Where she stays. The city is struggling to rebuild but the clever ruler has at least reopened the ports and begun rearming the ruined fortresses on the coast.
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Post by The Forgotten God on Jul 12, 2015 12:49:26 GMT -5
The port is busy with the flow of workers to and from the docks, carpenters rebuilding damaged ships and masons repairing the foundations of the piers themselves and the fortresses guarding the harbor, and the noise and bustle is welcoming, especially compared to the former sullen silence that had befallen Lannisport after its two assaults by the Ironborn. Thousands of people have returned to the city, but crime is a rising problem and hard currency is beginning to run low. Bandits are forcing heavy security around the gold mine shipments from the east, which erodes profits, and shipping insurance is at an all time high. Some merchants are paying thirty percent of their cargo from usurous bankers.
The new lady of the west has quite a busy plate, in summary. On the fourth day of the new year, the richest of the merchants in Lannisport, Edward Stann, asks to speak to the lady. In a previous and more innocent life he had once kissed her for information, but in the last few years, as Joanna has grown more and more powerful, his flippant demeanor has grown a touch more wary.
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Post by Queen Joanna Lannister on Jul 13, 2015 3:55:19 GMT -5
He was permitted to Joanna's study a while later. The lady Lannister was leaning against her desk, which was barely visible under all the documents and log books. Evidently she'd been stretching her legs after spending the entire morning working. A gold-rimmed pair of spectacles lay on top of a heavy stack of parchments; it seemed that she'd finally found remedy to her ocular affliction, having been squinting at books for years.
"Master Stann," she greeted.
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Post by The Forgotten God on Jul 13, 2015 12:16:17 GMT -5
"I like the glasses, my lady," he said in his charming voice. "Prince Lucian's finest artisans no doubt." He looks for space on her desk and then gives up, looks around and finds nothing else useful to place something on, so he simply holds out a map marked with some sort of numbers all over them. "Fourteen more ships vanished between here and Sunspear, and I doubt Prince Arthur and the weather are all to blame." He looked annoyed more than angry. "And even in the city, I've been seeing signs of trouble. Had to write to Winterfell for some guards of more...deterrence value," he said. "And that new lord is far better at haggling than his grandsire was." He runs a hand through his thick brown hair. "But I promise I did not come just to whine. I have news of more promise. My surveyors have found what they believe to be a promising gold vein."
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Post by Queen Joanna Lannister on Jul 13, 2015 15:13:30 GMT -5
Joanna offered the man a seat opposite the desk, not moving from her own spot. "I'm not quite sure I follow. You asked Kalvin Stark for guards?" she inquired, raising an eyebrow. "Is the western stock of big burly men really so exhausted that you need to import them from the North?" She shrugged. They weren't his men, not hers.
She gave Edward a warm smile at his last piece of information. "And I take it you are here to share it with me?"
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Post by The Forgotten God on Jul 13, 2015 15:48:54 GMT -5
Edward shakes his head. "The guards here have be been plundered by the lords to guard against the Ironborn, and have developed a far exaggerated sense of their worth. These wildlings are far cheaper and more vicious. They are for bandits, not household use. Plus, our little construction project has sent many into labor or hunting those dastardly bandits on the frontier." He smiled. "I thought it would be rude to mine on your lands without your knowledge." He chuckled. "Or to be more direct, the vein is in lands still ravaged by war and overrun with brigands and greedy landed knights who want nothing to do with a rich merchant who has never been a warrior."
He pours a drink. "I suspect that clearing out those bastards could be done by me, but the actual landholders, or...those who say they are the actual landholders, is beyond my resources. I figure starting a mine will be expensive, slaughtering the brigands around it will be tedious, and then protecting it once it is operational will be ruinous to a simple merchant such as myself. No, I thought, only the Lady Joanna herself should be involved in such a rich find. And if in her infinite generosity and kindness she sees fit to remember her dear friend Ed Stann, well, more the better."
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Post by Queen Joanna Lannister on Jul 14, 2015 3:55:42 GMT -5
"I do hope you just called them wildlings in a figurative sense," Joanna replied with a thin smile, deciding to drop that particular matter for now. She inched a little closer. "I must ask.. how did you stumble upon said vein of gold?" she inquired, not wanting to send her men in there blindly. "And what kind of brigand numbers are we talking about?"
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Post by The Forgotten God on Jul 14, 2015 12:09:13 GMT -5
"Same way we usually do," he said. "Couple farmers in a stream fishing found gold in their nets. They couldn't keep their mouths shut and some bandits waylaid them, but not before we heard the rumor. Spent a few weeks surveying up the shores until we found the vein it had come from. Maybe a storm exposed it or something." He calculates in his head a second. "I can't intelligently answer how many bandits we may be speaking of. At least sixty probably. It's up in the hills east of Ashemark so if we aren't careful the Ironborn may even be able to raid it."
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Post by Queen Joanna Lannister on Jul 21, 2015 3:56:04 GMT -5
"We'd best be careful, then," Joanna replied, pushing away her cup of wine that she hadn't even touched to indicate the end of this conversation. "I will send people to claim the vein. And if it is as you said, you will of course benefit greatly of this," she said, offering him a kind smile.
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Post by The Forgotten God on Jul 21, 2015 4:15:42 GMT -5
Edward takes the hint. "Thank you, my lady," he said.
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