"Alright, careful now… careful. You don't want to know what happens if that glass breaks."
Honestly, I didn't know what would happen if that glass broke. Last time it had only gotten on me and the dragon glass floor. For all I knew it would turn plants into mutant monsters if you spilled it on them.
Either way, I had no intention of finding out, as the "generator was carefully lowered into the freshly built concrete pit. It was an enormous Ironwood box with several protruding ports hooked into various wires, which ran off out of the pit underground to other hubs.
Running them underground was difficult to be sure, but the difficulty of construction was a small price to pay compared to the safety setting up this world's first electrical system underground would provide. The Stepstones were stormy, and with neither an easy insulator nor altogether too many people trained in electrical repair work, a downed line would be an utter nuisance.
But underground there was far less concern, and I was already using most of my indentured workers for building up the sewer system as it stood. I had a better idea of the size I expected now, unlike Dragonstone, and a copious supply of imported company engineers with years of experience building the existing system.
It was expensive, sure, even more so than the enormous amount of copper that I was using for wires. Concrete wasn't exactly something I had needed in huge quantities before, but now I had needed to open up whole new production facilities on Storm-Sky just to meet the demand, not to mention losing trade ships as I needed to import stone and steel from Dragonstone.
Still, it was getting done, a benefit of the sheer number of workers available to me here to begin with, between the soldiers from Fort Edric, the training base I had established in the area before setting up shop here, and the levied labor from my not-yet citizens, the plans I had for my capital had been coming together quickly, with an eye towards future construction.
Of course, there was so much shaping to do before even the foundations could be dug. The one dirt path I had dug circling the island needed to be expanded into a future road network, the sewers had to be put in, the channels of the delta had to be widened to allow ships passage to the ocean, and finally, the electrical system had to go down, avoiding the sewers.
Thankfully, only the electrical grid needed my direct supervision, but still, I had an army and a kingdom to run, and that was already a bigger job than any one man could really do.
I was actually a little glad for some of the first little provincial councils cutting into my power on that front. Sure, I wasn't as absolute now as I had been when I took the island a couple of months ago, and besides, they still lacked a general council, so I could still pass things over their heads if I needed to.
I hadn't yet mind, the councils that had formed seemed fairly timid in their actions so far, and my governors were still mostly doing the actual administrative work across the islands.
I grinned as the last of the generators was sunk down into its concrete pit, the last wires being hooked into it by some of Gerald's acolytes.
The sphere's and their properties lended themselves to something a bit different than the standard power network on earth, with their small size and relatively high wattage. By my amateur estimation, they worked best for a system of distributed power generation, rather than the standard large plants I could remember back home. Instead, every few hundred feet a hub was dug into the ground. Each had a generator and a switchboard, along with other control equipment. The copper wire I was using was mostly garbage for now, higher resistance than I had anticipated, but this system helped to avoid the inevitable problems that would cause.
The hubs were numbered and labeled, and each supported the ports in its immediate area, essentially power sockets at the base of each planned foundation. The Hubs were hooked together as a network as well, and in the event of an emergency they could transfer power from the living ones to a dead one, but I couldn't really imagine what could prompt the need for that. They didn't seem to run out of power after all.
Well, actually that was a lie, I could imagine plenty of things that could hurt my generators, but I couldn't imagine why I would want to keep the streetlights on if my city was under attack.
Either way, the system was starting to take shape well, as we're the earthworks surrounding my hopeful new castle, though they were only just beginning as the majority of the workers finished up on the Sewers. Set just at the foot of the Stormpeak, it was about two miles south of the edge of where I currently planned the city to be, but even now the work crews were visible up the slope, digging out the moat which would be fed off of the deaths-touch river.
'Note to self, rename river.'
It wasn't even the worst name on Storm Sky, much less in the Stepstones as a whole.
By all rights, Grey Gallows had been one of the more cheerful ones, Skinner's hook being the most blatantly evil name on the island.
'Whoever had been naming the geography of the Stepstones before I got here was edgier than a Bolton, I swear.'
Anyhow, we were just working on putting in the first of the lamp-posts when I got a fair case of Deja-Vu, as a messenger came tearing up the trail from the south towards me.
As he came to an exhausted stop and delivered his message, I pulled my hand down my face.
It seemed that my Father and Uncle had finally decided the Red Cult had gotten its teeth kicked in hard enough in the Disputed lands. They were sailing back this way just in time for the new year.
I was going to have to host my Uncle. The KING of WESTEROS. In a shoddy tavern of all places.
I glanced up the hill towards the earthworks surrounding what would eventually be a quite sensible castle, I hoped. Something I wouldn't be too ashamed to host a royal visit in. It might have some livable space on the first story by this time next year. Finished perhaps in Three.
I closed my eyes.
'Why does Family always seem to visit whenever you aren't ready for them?'
It had been three days since his forces split with Ned's, a large portion of the royal fleet breaking off to carry the men from the Reach and North up to Braavos. He missed him already. He had taken Joffrey with him too. Robert thought the campaign had been good for the boy, he'd been less of a little shite the longer it had progressed, though part of that was just him being quieter, and not having his mother to hide behind.
And that was one conversation Robert was not looking forward too. It was part of why he had suggested to Stannis that they stop to visit his Nephew's new "kingdom" in the Stepstones.
'Not much of a kingdom so far, it seems.' Robert chuckled through the pain to himself.
It was the worst thing about his wounds, the pain, he could move perfectly fine with them, though his right arm was a bit sore all the time, but the pain had never really died down, and in the month since the battle, the skin had hardly healed at all. The Maesters didn't know what to do about it. The useless sots said magic was beyond their study.
If he had to have magical wounds he was damn well going to find a maester who had studied magic.
It was around sunset two days before the New Year when they finally reached Grey Gallows. In the Orange glow of the setting sun it seemed to him to be a big chunk of red rock, rising up out of the ocean with sheer cliff faces, but Robert had seen his maps, he knew that it evened out further up to a degree, and that some sparse settlements sat atop the cliffs at points, especially in the places where rivers cut trenches in that impregnable wall.
Such was their destination, revealed in the horizon by the silhouettes of fortresses placed on top of the cliffs. As they approached, he noted that odd beacons atop their towers seemed to serve the role of a lighthouse, great shafts of focused lights sweeping over the waters ahead of the royal fleet, guiding them in towards the "Gates" of the port, where the cliff face split, flanked on either side by his Nephew's fortresses.
Robert turned back across the deck, looking for his brother, who he found on the quarterdeck, directing his onion knight.
"Say, Stannis, what's making those lights?"
"Hmmm?" His brother turned, before looking up at the fortresses. "Oh, probably some work of my son's or the Wisdom Frey. They have some manner of harnessing lightning. He had mentioned having them put in at Dragonstone as well."
"Lightning you say? Then where's the thunder?"
"Cannons I suppose? I don't know, you'd have to ask him."
Robert nodded, it seemed like a silly use for lightning. If he could harness lightning he'd toss it at his enemies, not use it as a makeshift bonfire.
Though as they entered the port, it became evident that it was not solely being used on the walls. While most of the town could be made out only as a silhouette in the dark, as per usual outside of feast days. The town center and docks seemed to have more flickering white-green lights set up along their length.
It seemed helpful to navigate into a portion clearly left open for some of the royal ships along the deeper part of it. Arthur knew they were coming then.
That made sense, Stannis had said that he had sent word ahead.
This was further confirmed by the delegation that met them on the docks.
Arthur was much taller than the last time he had seen him, a short man's height now, though he was still a child, and his greyscale scarring was gone, leaving him with a stern but not entirely ugly face, much like his father's. He certainly didn't look to be dressing in a particularly kingly manner, but then with the queen way his brother's family had chosen to start dressing a few years back it was hard to tell.
Still, it seemed rather plain with only a white buttoned jacket that held a short cape around his shoulders.
Still, he hadn't named himself king yet had he?
'Maybe he wants to pledge fealty to me first, see if I'll take it.'
Robert honestly hadn't given the Kingdom of the Stepstones much thought at all with all else that had been going on.
With Renly dead he had half been planning to give the Stormlands to Stannis if only to silence his ceaseless bitching at court, but he doubted Jon would like it much if he handed his Brother's family two kingdoms without consulting him first.
But then if Arthur pressed him on it tonight what was he supposed to do.
As the gang-plank dropped he wanted to groan internally. 'Maybe I should have thought this out ahead of time.'
Still, he put on his most boisterous smile as he stepped up onto the gangplank, even managing to avoid wincing as his flank flared with pain.
"Greetings Nephew, I see that you are well? You've grown a great deal since I last saw you."
"Indeed Uncle, Father, I welcome you both to Storm Sky, formerly known as Grey Gallows, and I must congratulate you on your victory, they're calling you Robert Dragonslayer now I hear. As good a title as any I've heard."
"True, true," Robert chuckled, "but what of you Nephew, going out and conquering a kingdom for yourself, and younger than I was when I did it too, though you don't have quite as many of them. Why don't you show your father and I around the place on the morrow, though I profess that I'm a tad starved at the moment. Food aboard ships always sets my stomach a'rolling I find."
Robert smiled as that elicited a cheerful laugh from the youth, almost a mirror of his own though still a tad higher pitched. "I'm sure I can find you, something Uncle, though I'll warn you it likely won't match the chefs in your fancy palace, as mine still hasn't had the foundations laid yet." The boy smiled right back at him. "I hope you aren't too averse to tavern food?"
Robert couldn't help himself, chuckling aloud. The King of Westeros landed on his shores and the first thing his nephew did was invite him to a tavern.
Why, he was liking him better already.