Chapter 35: the hidden islands(Suryaputra's POV)

I was going to complete a mission given by the real me.

I was in the Axe. The Axe is a peninsula on the northern coast of Essos that juts into the Shivering Sea. It is located southeast of Lorath, east of the Hills of Norvos, north of the Darkwash, and northwest of the Forest of Qohor.

Not long before, Norvos and Ibben both claimed the peninsula. Gold and amber from the Axe once flowed into Dagger Lake by way of the Qhoyne and its tributary, the Darkwash.

The surviving dragon riders from the war of Norvos did not accept the political defeat of losing a war that the freehold spend so much to initiate, so they decided to implement the previous expansion plan proposed by Norvos.

Without declaring war, they burned the military posts of the Ibbenese in the Axe, the attack was so quick that it was not expected and they only have to use the small city army from Norvos to quickly take over the land.

Later they flew to Ib and burned their fleet, so the war was one before it even began. They took the surviving Ibbenese from the Axe as slaves and the bearded priest started to construct a new temple. Without any better alternative, they started to trade with the Sarnori to buy slaves.

With the hard work of slaves from different places, a skeleton of a city that was beginning to be called New Norvos was taking place.

Most slaves that reached there were from Sarnor, but some were Ibbenese, Jogos Nhai, Qartene, Yi Tish, and so on...

I was taken by slavers. How? A bandit group in Saath tried to steal from me and capture me.

One saw my earrings and tried to steal them, but he couldn't, so he tried to cut my ears, which he failed. This got annoying, so I beat them up along with his companions, making sure to not let any of them with a wound visible to the naked eye.

I put my hand on the leader's throat, lifted him by it, and said he should sell me to a slave trader ship if he wanted to live. They obeyed.

The sea was quite dangerous, with occasional pirate raids, so ships usually do not travel alone. There were several slaves traveling together. After I killed all the free men on the ship I was in, it was easy to convince the slaves to take over the ship.

Later, I swam in the sea and cleaned the other five ships. So I lead the slaves to run away from Valyria's reach. Our travel took us to the north of Lorath, as the colony was pretty much isolated, they have a very weak navy, so our ships were not caught.

I guided them to the Braavos archipelago, or a random archipelago to be more accurate, as Braavos was not founded yet.

After reaching there, we swore a vow that no one in this new city would ever be a slave, thrall, or bondsman.

This vow became the First Law of Braavos, and we engraved it.

To make the written law more significant, I pleaded that all Braavosi should be taught how to read and write. Because Karna learned to write in many languages throughout the world, I taught the unlearned to write in their language, and together we ended up making a unified language for the city. With my great effort, education became the Second Law of the city.

Using the wood to make paper and crafting some moving press, I was able to make a very small library with only a book recording the city, and a few books we took from the ships we stole in our escape.

The archipelago has a hundred islands in a vast lagoon found where the Shivering Sea and the narrow sea come together.

The nearby mainland is mostly marshland, whilst the seaward sides of Braavos are protected by tall, mountainous islands which form a semi-circle around the city, such as Sellagoro's Shield.

The islands were an inhabited cold cloud forest. The pine trees there are short and crooked, and the woody species are often less diverse than those in neighboring forests that are drier.

The lagoon was well hidden from the sight of the dragonlords by the wall of hills covered with pine trees and the fog covering the lagoon.

The forest was filled with mosses, climbing ferns, lichens, and other epiphytes (air plants, such as orchids), which form thick blankets on the trunks and branches of trees.

There are Begonias and terrestrial ferns grown to exceptionally large sizes in clearings. There were pines spread through the islands, mostly on the islands farther from the mainland.

I guess the original Braavos, cut off most of the pine trees leaving them having to feel the brunt of cold wind current coming from the northern hemisphere, so they have to buy new trees to work as a natural defense.

I would not let them make the same mistakes. I stayed there for longer and taught the people everything I could.

As this region is cold, they surely would need timber. So I taught them a simple put more sustainable method of natural exploration, if they cut off a tree, they should plant at least seven others. This became the Third Law of Braavos. I also helped them with a lot of manual labor.

I hope that with a more conscious exploration of nature, Braavos does not end up with the eldest part of the city, which is filled with history, fallen into the lagoon, with only the domes and towers of the old buildings visible above the surface of the water. This happened in original Braavos history the place would have been in the northwest of the city, directly north of Ragman's Harbor.

Before a Rhoynar could use water magic outside of the Rhoyne, but it was very exhausting and the magic was so weak that it seems more like a magic trick.

Now with the existence of the Mother Rhoyne goddess, although magic was still stronger in the Rhoyne, it could be very strong outside of it as well.

With hard labor, water magic, and a lot of ingeniosity, we together started linking by small stone bridges the islands, and spanning many canals throughout the skeleton of what would become Braavos.

As the water from the lagoon is brackish and briny and the canal water is not drinkable without first boiling it, we built the sweetwater river to supply ourselves with clean water.

A grey stone roadway supported by three tiers of arches traveling from the south, looming above the canals and houses, it brings fresh water from the mainland across the mudflats and the briny shallows.

We piped it directly into their homes. We also built a sewage system, where we simply threw the waste into the open sea. The sweetwater river ends at the Moon Pool.

I was following a deep desire for the real me, as he was quite a fan of Braavos. Although, Karna was not delusional about the future braavosi.

They may despise slavery, because of their origin, but the braavosi never bother to end this, because there were a lot of slavers among their debtors, and they know they could not win against all free cities combined.

They are no heroes. It is bullshit propaganda on their part to say that they wared with the Pentoishi because of slavery. If they want to screw slavery they would have wared with Volantis, after all the Pentoishi were mostly slave buyers and at most weak dealers to Norvos and Qohor, while Volantis was the slave gateway.

Future Braavos probably want the easy entrance to the continent, not for land lust, but because the archipelago could easily be invaded by a near land camp.

So it was more of a war-related to military strategy and probably to affirm a position of power among the free cities.

The ruler of the city will still be known as the Sealord, now he lives in a hut, but the future ones may live in a Sealord's Palace in the northeast of the city.

My opinion is that the original Braavos is practically an official oligarchy. So I propose a different system with laws, better defined. Instead of the sealord being chosen by Braavosi magisters and keyholders through a convoluted process, serving for life; it will be chosen by every permanent citizen of the city vote. It will have a limit in the government of eight years.

I also built a three-power system. The judiciary will be formed by people that passed a public tender. People would have to pass a public tender to join the legislative elections as well, to avoid Braavos having incompetent rulers.

The Sealord's personal guard is commanded by the First Sword of Braavos, which is me right now. I am also working as a military leader.

We started to conduct trade using a fake location map and with the stolen ships tied purple, even in the hulls, to disguise as well.

Part of our trade early wealth came from the brackish waters of the lagoon. These waters yielded oysters, eels, crabs, crawfish, clams, rays, and many sorts of fish.

But with my teaching, we were able to produce high-quality steel, to make good use of the iron mines in the city.

I also trained a navy to defend the city so with ships tied light blue, we started raiding slave traders' ships, freeing more and more slaves and making the city gradually bigger.

There were pirates everywhere if you do some dispersed attacks here and there it wouldn't help Valyria or other nations locate this place.

Not that I could not protect the city on my own, but they don't need to know this... I want them to grow on their own.

While the city self-ruled, I became the sword and the worker to help the city become more and more powerful.

We also gradually built several temples in want would be known as the Isle of Gods. I built a temple in honor of Karna's father and mother. I also built a temple in honor of Mother Rhoyne.

I looked at Braavos and I saw a piece of art.