The warehouse in Braavos had transformed. It no longer smelled of soap alone; it smelled of ozonated air and rich earth.
Viserys stood over a prototype test plot of wheat. While the rest of the world waited for the "White Raven" of winter with dread, his stalks were heavy with grain.
"The cream worked, Viserys," Daenerys said, walking through the rows. She wasn't wearing silks; she wore a sturdy Laborer's Tunic with her sleeves rolled up. "The beetles touched the stalks and died, but the birds who ate the beetles stayed healthy. The workers call it 'The Prince's Blessing'."
"It's not a blessing, Dany. It's Toxicology," Viserys replied, adjusting a Galvanometer on his workbench. "I've seen the records in the Citadel. Every winter, thousands die because they eat grain rotted by damp or pests. We are going to make hunger a myth of the past."
"But the Iron Bank is curious," Dany warned. "They see the ships coming in with your fertilizers. They see the orphans of the city looking healthier than the high-born. They fear you are a sorcerer."
Viserys smiled, looking at a blue notification flickering in his vision.
[TECH TREE UNLOCKED: ORGANIC CHEMISTRY]
Current Assets: 1,200 Tech Points.
New Invention Available: Refrigeration (Ice-Dragon Storage) or Smallpox Vaccine.
"Let them fear," Viserys said. "The lords of Westeros rule through the 'Right of the Sword.' We will rule through the Right of the Harvest. A man with a full stomach has no reason to bow to a Baratheon."
The air in the Braavosi clinic was thick with the scent of Vinegar and clean linen. Outside, the city was in a panic. A ship from Slaver's Bay had brought a weeping, blistering fever that killed three out of every ten people it touched.
"Line up! Keep your distance!" Daenerys shouted. She stood atop a crate, her silver hair tied back in a practical braid. She held a Printing Press pamphlet high. "The Red Priests say this is R'hllor's wrath. The Septons say it is a test of the Seven. My brother says it is a Microbe! And he has the cure!"
A mother held up a shivering child. "Please, Princess. The Maesters say there is no hope but prayer."
"The Maesters are looking at the stars while the truth is under their fingernails," Dany said gently, stepping down to help.
Inside the inner sanctum, Viserys worked with a Hypodermic Needle—a marvel of fine metallurgy he'd spent weeks perfecting. He pressed the needle into the arm of a terrified dockworker.
"It will itch, and you may feel a slight fever," Viserys explained, his eyes calm behind his glass goggles. "That is your body learning to fight. Within a week, the Great Sickness will not be able to touch you."
[TECH TREE PROGRESS: IMMUNOLOGY]
Current Status: Saviour of Braavos.
Points Earned: 2,500 (Massive Public Approval Bonus).
New Knowledge Unlocked: Steam Power Fundamentals.
The dockworker looked at the tiny red mark on his arm. "Why do this for us, Prince? We have no ships. We have no swords."
Viserys paused, looking at the man—really looking at him. "Because a Republic isn't built on the backs of slaves or the whims of lords. It's built on Healthy Citizens. Go home. Tell your neighbors that the Targaryens aren't bringing dragons back to burn the world. We're bringing the truth to heal it."
In King's Landing, Robert Baratheon and Jon Arryn receive word of a "Miracle Prince" in the East. They expect an army of sellswords; instead, they hear reports of peasants refusing to pay tithes to the Faith because a "Targaryen Medicine" saved their village when the Septons' prayers failed.
Viserys has successfully weaponized Mercy.
The deep mines of the Flatlands had been abandoned for a century, drowned by black groundwater. Now, they hummed with the rhythmic thump-hiss of Viserys's Steam-Powered Beam Engines.
Viserys stood at the mouth of the shaft, holding a piece of high-grade magnetite. "The Lannisters are scratching at the surface of the earth with pickaxes and prayers," he muttered to himself. "We are reaching for its heart."
Daenerys walked up to him, clutching a ledger. "The first shipment of coal has reached the forge, Viserys. And the first class of 'Royal Scholars' has finished their basic mathematics. They're asking why a Lord is allowed to take half their harvest if the Lord doesn't provide the fertilizer or the pumps."
Viserys smiled. "What did the instructors tell them?"
"To keep quiet and keep studying," Dany replied, a smirk playing on her lips. "But they're starting to see that 'Natural Law' applies to politics just as much as it applies to gravity."
[NOTIFICATION: RESOURCE ACQUIRED]
Iron and Coal production stabilized.
Tech Points Unlocked: 3,000.
Available Research: Bessemer Steel Converter (Stronger Rails/Cannons) or The Telegraph (Instant Communication).
In Casterly Rock, Tywin Lannister stared at a report. His gold production was stagnant, but his costs were rising. He had heard of a "Merchant Prince" in the East selling a machine that could drink a lake.
"He calls himself a Prince," Tywin mused to his brother Kevan. "But he acts like a banker. He is buying the loyalty of the smallfolk with bread and medicine. We must find out how these 'pumps' work."