Chapter 23: The Endless Green – Settlement and Conquest of Sothoryos
King's Landing, 198 AC – 210 AC (Fast-Forward Montage)
Even after the fall of Ghiscar-Reborn and the seizure of its black gold fields, Sothoryos remained a continent of shadows. The pyramids of the ape kingdom marked only one corner of a landmass vaster than Westeros itself—jungles stretching thousands of leagues south and east, plateaus rising into mist-choked mountains, rivers wider than the Trident snaking through fever swamps, and coasts of black sand where basilisks nested in cliffs. Daemon's army had claimed the northern savannas and river deltas, but beyond the horizon lay unknown kingdoms, lost cities swallowed by vines, and resources yet uncounted. Oil wells pumped steadily into ironclad tankers, rubber groves bled sap for the factories, iron mines rang with picks—but Aenys II knew the truth: Sothoryos was not conquered. It was merely breached.
In the High Tower's map chamber, now expanded with cement walls and steam-heated floors, Aenys gathered his heirs and council in the winter of 199 AC. New charts covered the tables—drawn from dragonfly reconnaissance and explorer reports. Vast blank spaces yawned south of the Ghiscar heartland: "Uncharted Rainforest," "Southern Plateaus," "The Green Abyss." Oil seeps had been found farther inland; iron veins traced deeper; rumors persisted of uranium-bearing rocks glowing in mountain caves. But the land itself—fertile beyond measure, timber thicker than any in the Stormlands, spices unknown to the Reach—remained wild.
"We hold the north," Aenys declared, tracing a finger along the secured river lines. "But the continent laughs at our borders. We will not stop at one kingdom. Sothoryos will be ours in full—every league, every resource, every hidden vein. And to claim it, we need more than armies. We need people."
The proclamation went out by raven, rail, and ironclad in the spring of 200 AC: "The God-King calls the faithful to settle the Southern Green. Lands beyond counting await—black soil for every plow, iron for every forge, black gold for every engine. Come south. Build. Prosper. The dragon grants homesteads, tools, protection. In Sothoryos, the realm grows eternal."
The response was overwhelming.
Smallfolk from every kingdom answered. Flea Bottom's crowded alleys emptied as families boarded railcars bound for Blackwater ports. Reach farmers, land-poor sons of Reach lords, Northmen seeking warmer fields, Dornish herders tired of sand—all came. The Bloody Dragons organized the migration: trains ran day and night, ironclads ferried thousands across the Summer Sea, steamships unloaded at the new concrete harbor of Daemon's Landing (once a mangrove swamp, now a bustling port of iron docks and oil tanks). Academy clerks issued land grants—hundred-acre plots along cleared rivers, tax-free for twenty years, seeded with Reach wheat and Dornish citrus.
Settlement began in earnest.
Daemon's legions pushed south in coordinated campaigns. Steam-powered chain saws carved roads through jungle; cement blockhouses rose every ten leagues as fortified waystations. Dragons burned clearings for towns; Bloody Dragons drilled local auxiliaries—former Ghiscar subjects now swearing oaths to the three-headed dragon. New cities sprouted: Blackgold Hold at the richest oil field, its streets paved with cement, lit by kerosene lamps; Ironvein at the southern mines, smelters roaring with oil-fired furnaces; Rubberfall on the banks of a great tributary, groves harvested by steam extractors.
The fertile lands proved miraculous. Black soil, enriched by centuries of jungle decay, yielded three harvests a year—wheat, maize, yams, even experimental coffee and sugar cane brought from Yi Ti. Rail spurs carried grain north; the North's heated greenhouses (cement and glass) grew southern crops in winter. Population boomed—settlers multiplied, children born under dragon banners, schools teaching High Valyrian and steam mechanics.
Development accelerated with ruthless efficiency.
Oil became the lifeblood. Refineries multiplied—distilling crude into fuel oil for locomotives, kerosene for lamps, lubricants for machines, asphalt for roads. Ironclads converted fully to oil burners; rail networks expanded south, trains pulling tank cars instead of coal tenders. Rubber plantations—organized into vast estates—supplied tires for wagons, seals for engines, insulation for telegraph wires strung along the new lines. Iron mines fed foundries; steel rails snaked deeper into the interior.
Exploration never ceased.
Dragonriders—Rhaella leading the southern wings—scouted beyond the known maps. They discovered lost Ghiscari ruins swallowed by vines, cities of white stone with carvings of apes and dragons locked in combat. They mapped mountain ranges where uranium traces glowed under pure glass lenses—small deposits at first, but enough to spark Academy experiments in glowing forges. They found spices that burned the tongue hotter than Dornish peppers, woods harder than ironwood, beasts whose hides resisted dragonfire (prompting new evolutionary adaptations: [Flame-Retardant Scales Tier 2 Unlocked]).
Resistance flared, then faded.
Remnant ape clans—those who refused the queen's surrender—harried supply lines with guerrilla raids. Giant apes ambushed rail gangs; poisoned darts felled settlers. Daemon answered with fire and lead: dragons strafed villages, cannons shelled strongholds, Bloody Dragons hunted handlers through the jungle. By 205 AC, the last war drums fell silent. Surviving apes were integrated—tamed herds hauling cement and rails, platforms carrying surveyors into the highlands.
The crown encouraged settlement with incentives: free passage south, land grants scaled by family size, steam plows distributed to clear jungle, quinine prophylaxis against fever, Academy-trained maesters in every town. Smallfolk prospered—families grew fat on black soil harvests, children learned to read by kerosene light, villages named for fallen heroes rose along cement roads.
By 210 AC, the map had changed.
Daemon's Landing was a city of fifty thousand—concrete quays, oil refineries belching clean smoke, rail yards clattering day and night. Blackgold Hold housed twenty thousand, its streets lit brighter than King's Landing's. Ironvein produced steel for half the realm's needs. Rubberfall shipped sap by the tanker-load. New outposts pushed south—Dragon's Reach at the foot of the uranium mountains, Greenhold on a vast fertile plateau. The continent's heart remained wild, but its edges belonged to the dragon.
Aenys toured the new lands in 209 AC—flying Stormwing over rail lines, landing at oil fields where workers cheered the god-king. He stood atop a derrick, watching black gold pump into tanks, then addressed the assembled settlers from a cement platform.
"Sothoryos was a shadow," he proclaimed. "Now it is ours. Every grain of soil, every drop of oil, every vein of iron and uranium—belongs to the dragon, and to you who serve it. Build. Grow. The realm expands eternal."
The crowd roared—smallfolk in printed tunics, Bloody Dragons in crimson, former Ghiscari subjects now wearing dragon sigils. Dragons circled overhead, scales gleaming with new adaptations against jungle humidity and venom.
The system pinged: [Territorial Dominion: 42% of Sothoryos Secured. Resource Extraction: +120%. Population Migration: +1.8 million souls. Dragon Evolution Progress: 3.2% (jungle-specific sensory enhancements).]
Exploration continued—dragonriders probing deeper, rail lines creeping south, steamships charting unknown coasts. The continent still held secrets: rumored cities of gold farther east, mountains of glowing stone, jungles hiding beasts larger than the Great Apes. But the dragon advanced—relentless, unyielding, inevitable.
Sothoryos was no longer undiscovered.
It was being claimed, acre by acre, resource by resource.
And it would belong to the dragon—forever.
(Word count: 2002)