The Storm King

Leon’s return to Artorion couldn’t have come quickly enough. Leaving Alhamachim to its own devices seemed the best way to maintain good relations with his new vassal. Allowing them their autonomy was a good trade to gain the tribute they had to offer, as far as Leon was concerned.

Work on the city continued at a rapid pace. Since most of the most needed infrastructure had been completed, most construction efforts thus went into their defenses, focusing almost entirely on building fortresses at the northern and southern pass, the wall along the top of the ridges outlining the valley, and all of the towers along its length. Since speed was of the essence, Leon stipulated that there were to be no grand architectural flourishes, all of their defensive infrastructure would be simple and practical until their workforce was less constrained.

Leon focused so much on getting everything done as quickly as quality and safety standards would allow because, after those few weeks following the pirate raid, he was quietly convinced that something else was going to go wrong. In defiance of his expectation, however, aside from the submerged arks maintaining a presence off the southern coast, nothing of note happened. He was able to relax with his friends and family while seeing to his duties and breathing down the necks of anyone slacking off too much.

While he saw to more domestic matters, Icarius, Penelope, and Clear Day were hard at work outside of the Artor Valley. Icarius in particular worked quickly, interfacing first with the markets in Alhamachim before moving further afield to locate needed strategic materials. He sent a detailed report back to Leon of his findings two weeks after Leon’s return to Artorion.

In short, Lumenite from Alhamachim would satisfy about a quarter of Leon’s immediate needs, leaving the rest to be sourced elsewhere. Thankfully, of the three most important materials he needed, Lumenite was the most easily procured. Aurichalcum was rarer, but after leaving his daughter in charge of sourcing Lumenite from within Archelaus’ domain, Icarius left the region for the remote cities far to the north. The largest and most powerful of these cities was Shatufan, a city of several million people on the longest of the Finger Lakes, which was the only source of Aurichalcum that Icarius could find outside of monopolies in Archelaus’ domain which Leon wouldn’t be able to access.

Fortunately, the Finger Lakes were easy to reach, relatively speaking. They jutted from the northern tip of the same mountain range that Leon now called home, and the river that ran through the Artor Valley flowed from several of these lakes. If the river could be secured, then the river could facilitate trade. As far as anyone could tell, the only downside was the sheer distance of the journey—the Finger Lakes were about twelve thousand miles away from the Artor Valley.

For Aurichalcum, however, the journey would be worth it. Shatufan, Leon decided after reading that report, would be the first of the northern cities he would officially contact.

Of his needed strategic materials that could be found in the Nexus, that left only Titanstone. Titanstone, unfortunately, couldn’t be manufactured, only mined, and like Aurichalcum, Archelaus and his Strategoi had issued monopolies on the mines they had in their land. Leon wouldn’t be acquiring any Titanstone from them any time soon.

So without a good way to purchase any, he was left with one option: he had to find some. While most of his earth mages were working with his magic engineers and architects to build his city’s defenses, he sent as many as he could spare to the mountains to the north and west, and the fields and forests to the south and east. These earth mages would conduct more in-depth surveys of the land with a focus on locating any sources of Titanstone that might lie near the Artor Valley.