Chapter 46

Time flew by as the Lands were hurriedly returned to Human Hands to stabilise the many Markets of the Westerlands, and you soon realised that even your Father was buried in his very own portion of the struggle. Given that the Lands were originally acquired by House Lannister through the interests of lending the Rocks Gold to the many Houses of the Westerlands it wondered nobody that just as many Houses now showed great interest in buying the Lands right back, much to the displeasure of your Father.

Smaller Houses simply didn't have the Resources for the work you were currently doing, which was the only reason why they didn't lose their Heads for the disrespect of even making such a Request, the Lord of the Rock was the most reasonable Man in the Realm after all. You're sure that using the Opportunity to gain favour with the smaller Houses while at the same time strengthening them didn't have anything to do with your Father's show of patience, or at least that was the position that everyone else in the Rock was taking.

You realised that things were genuinely beginning to work out not too long after the Lords of the West began breaching the Topic in the open, if even the normal Opposition was asking nicely the future of House Lannister was truly assured. Even if the Crown were to try and force the West into waging War against the Iron Islands now, it could simply be laughed off, despite the Message doing so would send to the rest of the Realm.

The Concept of the Westerlands as a Nation was quite ridiculous for any sane Noble that was calling Westeros his Home, but if push came to shove once more, you're sure that your House would have all the Strength that's needed to make it actually happen now. Mayhaps you might actually get a happy ending if your work keeps pushing the West in the current direction, especially when looking at the State of the Seven Kingdoms you can't even see the lately so annoying Shadow on your future. The Realm's former so very fragile Unity was crushed by the efforts of the Wildlings and Ironborn, and it was honestly exhilarating to think about all the Madness rapidly claiming the Continent with so comparatively little effort.

It surprised you just how little effort it took to compel the Lords of Westeros to fight against their own long term interests, so much so that you decided after a moment of thought to give it another try. Though that still left you with the Question of where your Family could actually benefit from a new Spark of Chaos, the Options were after all quite manifold. But after thinking on it, the Eastern Provinces of Westeros were pretty much your only valid Targets that could provide decent Damage, seeing as they were still largely in working order near the Crownlands and loyal to the King.

As you narrowed it down to either the Vale or the Stromlands you couldn't help but wondered if perhaps the Crownlands themselves wouldn't make for the juiciest Target in the East, but the Thought didn't stick. The Knights of the Vale and the great Castles of the Stormlands simply made for far greater Obstacles, you can't imagine that the Armies of the Rock would ever struggle against the Walls of the Capital or the Keeps surrounding it, yeah, it's simply better to make sure that the King's Forces lose some of their mobility granted by the Vale and House Arryn.

It would be nice if you could just send some Steel to the Hill Tribes calling the Vale their Home, and House Arryn their Enemy, but the Chances of failure and the Consequences of screwing up were in the end outright unacceptable to you. Instead, you decided to take your little Companion and Oracle aside and ask her what she thought about the Vale and its Knights. The following Conversation was sadly a bit too boring and bland for your taste with how focused she was on their Honour, but when you thought back on it a few Hours later you supposed that it was still a great place to start, just like you had hoped.

Honour made for a great Shield against all sorts of Threats, but if it's used by someone with a lack of Wisdom, it also had the potential to become a Weapon. If their Sense of Honour could be turned against their Lord and House Arryn then you didn't see a way how the Foundation of the Vale's Strength could possibly remain unharmed. You didn't need a wasteful Civil War between the Knights of the Vale after all, it made far more Sense to simply focus on diminishing their Ability to unite under a single Banner for the time being.

You were naturally still busy with your current efforts in the Westerlands, thus you didn't have any time to spare on visiting the Vale yourself this time, it meant that you would have to send someone you could trust to make some Chaos, namely Marie. Her Ability was immensely useful in restoring the Land to productivity, but you were sure that you could manage it alone for a while if you sped up the amount of Land being reclaimed and leave it to Mother Nature to patch it all up.

Despite Marie's many smaller faults, you can be more than sure that everyone near her would begin to see problems everywhere, and no Knight or Lord would truly fault a pious little Girl like her for pointing out the issues that usually remain in the Background. Everyone would look bad and unclean when directly compared to a Saint after all, and you truly can't find a reason to not use all the Assets you currently have at Hand, hence you also decided to make use of your Ability for the Occasion. You settled on a number of simple Necklaces with the glowing Star of the Seven for Marie to give around, let's see how much Damage some Burns can cause for now.