A month. Thirty days that had seen the Hollard Valley awaken from a centuries-long slumber into a feverish sketch of human activity. The silence—once broken only by the rumble of the river and the cry of a falcon—was now pierced by the thud of axes biting into wood, the shouts of men directing the first clearings, and the creak of carts rolling over freshly carved tracks.
Tony had spent that first month in the field, pacing every corner of his new domain with Theron and a handful of guides. The survey had confirmed—and exceeded—his expectations.
While the prospecting advanced, the first wave of settlers had arrived from King's Landing. Two hundred souls—entire families handpicked by Jem from among the hardest-working yet poorest of Flea Bottom, those who had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Their arrival was a poignant sight: faces marked by suspicion and the fatigue of travel, staring in mute astonishment at the wild immensity of their new home. They expected new slums; instead, they found rows of tents aligned with military precision, freshly dug latrines, and above all, the immediate promise of work and wages.
Tony had not waited for factories to rise before launching his first economic venture. The wood was there—abundant and ready. The markets of King's Landing, Duskendale, and Maidenpool were hungry for fuel, and he intended to feed them well. Within the first week, under the direction of a skilled foreman poached from a nearby charcoal operation, dozens of meilers were erected in cleared glades. The technique was ancient and simple, but Tony added his touch: a strict selection of hardwoods—oak and beech for dense charcoal—and careful control of the slow burn to maximize both yield and quality. Soon, white plumes of smoke rose above the valley, marking the birth of Val-Engrenage first industry. This fine charcoal, hauled to its destinations by increasingly organized and well-guarded convoys, brought in the first indispensable stream of revenue, supplementing the profits still flowing from the thriving Flea Bottom enterprises.
But the true work was only beginning. Each week, new convoys arrived from the capital—not filled with settlers, but with tools. Strange tools, of a design unknown in Westeros, reverse-engineered by Tony himself. Two-man crosscut saws whose specially shaped teeth devoured wood twice as fast as traditional blades. One-wheeled barrows—simple, yet revolutionary for moving earth and stone over uneven ground. Crude but reliable spirit levels and precise plumb lines to ensure the verticality of every wall. Shovels and picks forged from higher-quality steel, less prone to dulling or breaking.
Distributed among the clearing and grading crews, these implements first drew puzzled stares, then cautious enthusiasm as the men realized their work was faster, easier, and less back-breaking than before.
The site of the future industrial town had been chosen: a slightly elevated plateau near a powerful river bend. Tony's improvised surveyors—trained on the spot with knotted ropes and stakes—spent weeks marking out parcels, tracing the locations of future factories, main roads, and the first housing districts. The ground was lined with chalk and wooden markers, a geometric skeleton imposed upon the wild. Everything was ready for construction to truly begin.
Meanwhile, Lira shuttled between King's Landing and the valley, bringing news along with the latest convoy of tools. She found Tony by the riverbank, staring intently at the rushing current—no doubt calculating something obscure and brilliant.
"Business is good in King's Landing," she began, after a brief greeting. "The lamps are selling like hotcakes. And Elara finally mastered the accounting system—it's… impressive." She paused. "But I also have news about the ambush."
Tony turned toward her, his expression suddenly alert.
"Joren tapped his contacts among the mercenaries," Lira went on. "No one is claiming the attack. If there were survivors, they've gone silent. But rumor points to a coalition of petty lords—minor landed knights and small houses whose income from timber or transport has been hurt by our operations. They didn't act out of hatred, but out of economic interest. They wanted to loot the convoy, thinking it carried gold, and maybe frighten us into halting our expansion."
"Do they have names?" Tony asked coldly.
"Nothing solid or believable. Nobodies, with men and little scruple. Still, to mobilize that many for an assault in the Crownlands… that takes guts—and influence."
Tony remained silent for a moment, watching the turbulent waters. "They failed. They lost men. They won't try again soon. But now they know we're not defenseless. Keep an eye on them, Lira. For now, our priority is here. To build. Fast."
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The following month was one of frenetic, almost godlike activity. Tony had launched the simultaneous construction of the three pillars of his future industrial might: the sawmill, the forge, and the cement works.
The hydraulic sawmill was the first to take shape. At the site Tony had chosen—where the river formed a natural rapid—dozens of men labored to build a rudimentary dam of stone and timber to channel part of the current toward a massive waterwheel. Kael, who had arrived with the second wave of technicians, oversaw the complex assembly of hardwood gears and drive shafts that would transform the river's brute power into mechanical motion. The main building—a long wooden hall already roofed—housed the pride of the installation: two huge frame saws fitted with steel blades, designed to be driven not by human muscle but by hydraulic force. Within weeks, the wheel turned, and the shrill scream of blades biting into timber echoed through the valley. Production of planks, beams, and rafters—each of standardized dimensions—soared, providing the essential material for every other construction at a pace once unthinkable.
At the same time, farther up the slope, the new forge was rising. This was no cramped King's Landing workshop—it was a behemoth. Theron, eyes gleaming with near-religious fervor, directed the creation of what would become the beating heart of the beast. At its center loomed the massive structure of the first blast furnace, built from refractory bricks made on site with local clay. Nearby, the foundations of future converters and rolling mills were already set—thanks to cement. Canals diverted river water to drive immense bellows, far more powerful than those in the capital, feeding the roaring air needed to melt ore. Theron knew the first steel poured here would be unlike anything Westeros had ever seen.
And then there was the cement works—perhaps the most revolutionary of all for rapid construction. On land near the limestone quarries and clay pits, Tony oversaw an operation that seemed like dark sorcery to the local workers. Men crushed rock with water-powered hammers, ground and mixed powders in exact proportions, then fired them in simple but efficient vertical kilns fueled by charcoal. The grayish residue that emerged—the clinker—was finely ground into powder. It was Tony Stark's own primitive Portland cement.
Next door, another workshop buzzed with activity: the blockworks. Hundreds of identical wooden molds stood in rows, filled by teams pouring a mixture of cement, river sand, and gravel. After several days of drying, the molds were removed, revealing gray, heavy, perfectly uniform blocks. For Tony, the age of uneven stone masonry was over. With these blocks and cement mortar, walls could be raised quickly and solidly—construction as an art of precision and speed. The first workers' homes and workshops were already rising, no longer of fragile wattle and daub, but of durable "artificial stone."
This surge of building was fueled by a constant influx of men and materials from King's Landing. But the convoys now carried more than tools. The latest wagons bore something that astonished the locals as much as the new saws and wheelbarrows: agricultural tools.
Light yet sturdy plows fitted with steel shares and moldboards, able to cut deeper and easier than the traditional wooden plows. Primitive seed drills that planted grain in neat rows at the right depth, saving seed and easing weeding. Scythes and sickles whose tempered blades kept their edge far longer.
Tony demonstrated the new plow himself on a field near the old keep, before a crowd of gathered farmers. The tool bit effortlessly into the earth, carving a clean, deep furrow where their old plows barely scratched the surface. The potential for greater yields was obvious. Tony offered to lend—not sell, for now—these new tools, in exchange for part of their future surplus harvest to feed Val-Gearhaven's growing population.
The farmers' initial mistrust slowly gave way to cautious hope. Perhaps this stranger from the city brought not only noisy factories, but a way out of their age-old misery—unlike their useless lord.
Tony watched the scene with a rare smile. The work advanced at a staggering pace. The sawmill was running. The forge prepared its first fire. The cement works produced steadily. The first walls were rising. The agricultural tools were ready. His plan was taking shape—faster than even he had hoped.
Six months to build a city? Watching the energy that now surged through the valley, the combined power of organization, technology, and human labor, he began to believe it possible—so long as no one tried to stand in his way.