Industry's most important requirement was population. Without people, everything else was of little use to Castel at present. Although Theus had instructed Ash to take the Banshees to investigate, their main objective was still to acquire some ships.
Theus did not hold much hope for Gem Bay. According to Chloe, the Pirate King had pulled the entirety of Gem Bay into Dream Entry. There was probably no one left alive there.
There might not be any people, but there was surely no shortage of treasure.
The "pirate" in Pirate King's Court was not just for show. They had certainly amassed enormous wealth, and Gem Bay's pirates had been blockaded by the Empire. Even if they had money, they had nowhere to spend it.
That was simply perfect.
The treasure plundered by the Black Sail Fleet would probably all end up benefiting Castel.
Theus had previously gone to great lengths to establish connections with Beatrice because he wanted to find a way through Rhine to sell off goods and earn some money.
Castel was, after all, too small an island. Its population was too sparse, its purchasing power extremely limited, and it was difficult to sustain an economic cycle for long. If they had not later begun their war against the monsters and entered rationing mode, Theus would probably have started issuing bonds by now.
This treasure could solve those practical problems nicely.
Beyond the treasure, Gem Bay itself was a treasure trove.
Castel did not produce coal, nor had it previously produced saltpeter. Though they had acquired a rich saltpeter deposit in that space, it could eventually be exhausted.
But Gem Bay had saltpeter mines.
One important source of saltpeter was animal waste. On the mainland, it could be produced from pigsties and stables.
On islands, however, there was an