The gold crowns of the Continent and the silver coins of the North suddenly felt like worthless lead in the hands of the Skelligers. The Universal Credit was not merely a coin; it was a promise backed by the inexorable weight of Arcanum's industry. When the first Tarantian merchant houses began to exchange these shimmering, high-density alloy discs for Skellige timber and ore, the economic shockwaves were felt from Kaer Trolde to the smallest fishing village on Spikeroog.
"A single one of these," whispered a merchant from Hindarsfjall, holding a Credit up to the light, "is worth a chest of Novigrad crowns. If this currency ever reaches the mainland, it won't just compete with the banks of the Vivaldis—it will dethrone them."
The Jarls knew that the Continent's economy was built on the sweat of peasants and the whims of kings, but the Credit was built on the precision of the Vendigrothian laboratory. Fortunately for the Isles, they possessed exactly what the four nations craved. Arcanum was a world of high technology and refined magic, but its appetite for raw resources—hardwood for Arlandic ships, iron for Tarantian steel, and rare minerals for Vendigrothian capacitors—was bottomless.
But the greatest treasure brought by the outlanders was not metal or paper. In a move that truly secured the future of the Isles, the four nations agreed to share their basic knowledge. Under the watchful eyes of the Jarls, construction began on four distinct academies, each a bastion of its nation's philosophy.
In the Tarantian school, the youth of Skellige learned the mathematics of steam and the logic of the ledger. In the Cumbrian and Arlandic halls, they studied the balance of the blade and the ancient, disciplined theories of magic. And in the sterile, silent halls of the Vendigrothian academy, the most gifted were taught the foundations of chemistry and the natural laws that governed the universe. It was a legal exchange; knowledge for a fee, turning the fierce warriors of the North into the first "modern" men of the new world.
While the youth studied, the raiders practiced. In the hidden coves of Ard Skellig, the sound of the axe hitting wood was replaced by the thunderous crack of Flintlock Pistols and Long Range Rifles.
A veteran raider, a man who had survived a dozen raids on the Cintra coast, stared at the smoking hole he had just punched through a thick oak shield from fifty paces. He looked at his trusted battle-axe, then back at the small, heavy tube of steel in his hand.
"An axe is nothing but a dinner knife against this," he muttered, his voice trembling with a mix of fear and exhilaration. "This isn't a weapon. It's a lightning bolt you can carry in your belt."
The realization was sobering. The Skelligers were no longer just raiders; they were becoming a force that could challenge the professional armies of the Continent. And as the first graduates of the Arcanum schools began to look toward the East, the "Sea-Kings" were ready to move.
The Isles were no longer just a destination. They were the launching pad.
******
The docks of Novigrad had seen many strange sights, but nothing compared to the arrival of the Sea-Hammer, a Skellige drakkar reinforced with Tarantian iron and powered by a muffled auxiliary engine. When the raiders stepped onto the stone piers, they did not look like the ragged plunderers the Free City remembered. They wore Cumbrian leather reinforced with Vendigrothian rivets, and across their backs hung "iron pipes" that caught the pale sunlight.
The first tremor of the coming storm hit the Vivaldi Bank.
A Skellige merchant, seeking to buy a warehouse's worth of Temerian linen, tossed a single Credit onto the counter. The teller sneered, reaching for his scales, but as the high-density alloy disc hit the wood with a heavy, resonant ring, the sneer vanished. The coin's purity and weight defied every crown, oren, or ducat in circulation. Word spread through the Hierarch Square like a wildfire: a single Credit from the Isles was worth more than a nobleman's ransom. The Crowns of Novigrad were dethroned in an afternoon, and the city's economy teetered on the edge of a ruckus it wasn't prepared for.
But the true revelation came near the Bits.
A Fiend, driven mad by the lingering dimensional tremors, burst from the sewers, charging through the crowded marketplace. City guards fell back in terror, their halberds snapping like dry twigs against the beast's muscled hide. Sorceresses in the shadows hesitated, wary of drawing the eye of the Eternal Fire.
Then, a Skellige youth—a graduate of the newly built Tarantian academy—stepped forward. He didn't draw his Balanced Sword. He unslung a heavy Flintlock Rifle.
BANG.
The sound was a physical blow, a sharp, deafening report that sent birds screaming from the rooftops. A single, well-placed lead ball, propelled by the volatile chemistry of Arcanum, tore through the Fiend's third eye and shattered its skull. The massive beast collapsed into the mud, dead before the echo of the shot had left the alleyways.
The silence that followed was heavy. Every eye in Novigrad—peasant, priest, and spy—stared at the "iron pipe" still smoking in the youth's hands.
This single moment of violence rippled across the borders, inadvertently altering the threads of fate. In the royal courts to the south, the shadow of the Kingslayer was lengthening. Letho of Gulet had been moving through the shadows, preparing to strike at the heart of the Northern Kingdoms. But as the news of the "Hand-Cannons" and the immense value of the Credit reached the palaces, the world stopped turning toward assassination.
King Foltest and King Demavend remained alive, their planned deaths delayed as their inner councils became obsessed with the Skellige anomaly. The political gears of the Continent ground to a halt; why kill a king when a new god of gold and iron had appeared in the West?
As the Sea-Hammer pulled away from the Novigrad docks to return home, they were not alone. Every major power—from the Empire of Nilfgaard to the Redanian Secret Service—dispatched their most elite spies to follow the wake of the Skellige ships. They moved toward the Isles with one desperate directive: find the source of the iron pipes, find the forge of the Credit, and learn who has given the "savages" of the sea the power to kill monsters with a single sound.