Chapter 74: First Meeting of the Athenaeum Club (END)
"Don't worry Lord Mallister as the blacksmiths of House Di Natale will have certain ways to identify the weapons they built. If there will ever be a dispute between our founding members, I will have a way to surely proof who the weapon in question originally belonged to.
As for your question on how to deal with the purchase over the year, there is no problem with only buying in small amounts, but you cannot use anything left in your quota after the yearly auction. There will be a hard reset on the quota. But I suggest communicating with members of the club that you have a good private relationship with.
Maybe you can make a deal with them and let them buy the items within your quota on your behalf while you trade them in another way. Those are just suggestions from me personally. There will be many ways you can deal with it in the future. You will also be able to sell your quota to different founding members in case you don't need to use your yearly quota by yourself or don't have enough resources." Victor explained to the members present and gave them some new ideas on how to proceed in the future.
Many members were already thinking about how many weapons they could buy for their own family and how many they would need to supply to other noble families of their region. Obviously, everyone was very aware of the fact that they could never monopolize all of the benefits they could receive from the private club, neither did they have the resources and wealth to fulfill the quota every year just with their family's fortune.
"This year's meeting won't have many more events, because we wanted you to first understand the regulations and benefits the club can bring you. You should use the next few days to communicate with the members of the club and maybe even close some deals while everybody is on Dustspear.
You will all receive your personal signing tool for a Athenaeum contract tomorrow. It will be delivered by the stewards of the club, which will gladly answer any question that will come to mind in the next few days.
I am sure all of you have brought along some of your family's stewards. They can start contacting the responsible person of House Di Natale and talk about the different prices of our products and how we value the resources of your administrative region.
For now, the first meeting of the Athenaeum club is over. I will stay on the island of Dustspear for a few more days as a vacation, so you can find me for a personal conversation anytime I'm free. You will receive a written copy of today's meeting in the evening.
I hope you will all reach some successful trades in the coming days, and you should take this as an opportunity to increase the influence of your families and to some degree try to avoid conflicting in private in the future."
When he reached the end of his statement, he obviously looked in the direction of Lord Mallister and Lord Harlaw, who already have a history of mutual disagreements. The Riverlands and the Iron Islands have been fighting pretty much every year.
Everybody accepted Victor's intention gracefully, but most people were not really convinced yet. They first needed to see the real benefits of being a member of the club before they would include the Athenaeum club into their consideration when planning for the future of the family.
Over the next few days Victor had personal meetings with pretty much all of the nine founding members from Westeros. He spent most of his time with his old friends Oberyn and Randyll, but never neglected anybody that wanted to make a deal with him or ask further questions.
He was the happiest with a deal he closed with House Swann of Stonehelm which would increase his influence in the Stormlands. House Di Natale and House Swann would further increase their trade volume and Victor would host some personal soldiers of House Swann in Canahs and give them additional training. The bodyguards of House Di Natale were already very well-known and famous across the Known World.
House Di Natale would therefore gain access to the resources of the Rainwood forest and further control over the Sea of Dorne. House Swann has friendly relationships with House Whitehead of the Weeping Town and would connect them with House Di Natale.
The Weeping Town is a market town in the Stormlands. Lying on the southern shore of Cape Wrath, along the Sea of Dorne, it has a thriving port which handles much of the Stormlands' trade. It is known as the Weeping Town because it is where the corpse of Daeron I Targaryen was first brought after the king was murdered in Dorne, remaining there for three days.
The town has stout wooden walls, peaked roofs, and crooked alleys. It is large enough to support three inns: the Broken Shield, the Loon, and the Drunken Dornishman.
Gaining access to this large trading town would tremendously increase the turnover of resources from the different islands of the Stepstones.
Overall, many beneficial trades were made during the first time the Athenaeum club met on Dustspear and everybody was grateful with their decision to accept the invitation and the long travel distance was worth it.
Rich families with a large fleet, like House Manderly, already used some of their quota and even bought a few low-grade cloud steel weapons and one high grade cloud steel weapon.
When the rest of the members witnessed them having those special weapons and even some pills of Penicillin, they grew increasingly jealous. This led to the fact that all members left Dustspear very quickly and the first meeting of the Athenaeum club came to an end.
Victor was very satisfied with everything that happened in the last week. Of course, there are ways to improve this yearly meeting the next time, but that was honestly not his business. Stewards of House Di Natale, House Maar and House Nahohr would take care of that. He only needed to make sure that the production base of Penicillin and cloud steel weapons was secure, and they would have enough items for the trade.
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