“It was arrogance, coupled with a rare oversight, that engineered my transit to this world,” the boy said, softly.
He looked down from his modest height, the sulfurous gold of his Sith eyes fixing upon the still prostrating figure.
“Tell me, Qarro… will it be arrogance that engineers your execution tonight?”
The Braavosi was drifting with his thoughts, pursuing lines of inquiry that crossed boundaries he couldn’t possibly understand or knew not.
“Forgive me… forgive my insolence, My Emperor,” the old man gasped, the damp stone of the floor pressing against his forehead.
“I meant no offense.
I was merely…
“Of course you meant nothing by it,” the boy replied, the slight acidity in his tone masked by a curtain of indulgence.
“To understand requires a degree of comprehension, and you, Qarro, possess none. Do not question why things are as they are. In time, that deficit shall be rectified. Now rise.”
With a cool draw of breath, the Sith Lord reeled in his radiating aura.
The oppressive pressure in the chamber dissipated instantly as he coiled his psychic might tightly back beneath a shroud of flawless Force stealth.
To Qarro and any external observer, the terrifying entity vanished, replaced once more by the unassuming frame of the Stark heir; even the colors of his eyes changed, returning to a blue tinge.
“We share something in common, you and I,” Palpatine murmured, stepping a few steps closer leisurely.
“We hold the discovery of knowledge so dearly. We recognize that power is the only true currency of existence. This continent…this entire primitive world—presents a fascinating tapestry of variables I have never seen before. And In time, I shall master them and eradicate others. I shall bring this land to heel, reduce its feudal structures to ash, and engineer my return to the galaxy where my faithful await. But the trajectory will be long.”
The Sith Lord paused, letting the silence of the room sink heavily on the old man’s shoulders , enforcing his fears more.
“It is a path fraught with friction, both political and martial. thousands will suffer, and in their agony, our strength will be forged. Millions more will be spent as mere fuel for the apparatus. The pursuit of power is absolute; the acquisition of absolute knowledge, inevitable. Will you attach your minor orbit to this grand endeavor, Qarro of Braavos?”
It was a cruel theater, and at this point, Palpatine was just taunting the man.
Unbeknownst to the victim, the question was a mere formality—a fact proven when the man repeated that he’d give his life and everything else just to serve him .
“I pledge my life,” Qarro choked out, lifting his gaze, his eyes wide with a fanaticism born of absolute terror.
“I pledge my resources, my accumulated wealth, and the entirety of the Covenant to your design, My Emperor.”
‘Good,’ Palpatine evaluated internally.
The display lacked the grand theatricality of a true politician, the carefully orchestrated pomp of the Galactic Senator, or the refined sycophancy of his Grand Vizier.
But for a backwater world of mud and iron, it would serve as a starting point.
“You may refer to me as Palpatine… my friend,” the Sith Lord said.
He offered a smile—a gesture that might have been reassuring had it not been framed by the grotesque juxtaposition of a child’s visage harboring that of a deceitful creature.
He closed the distance, extending a small hand to tap the Braavosi sharply on the tricep, a gesture that was textually familiar yet asserting total dominance.
“You can see we have much to do, and you have much to learn. The dark side of the force is a pathway to many abilities that some would consider… unnatural. But you shall learn, my friend, and you shall know true power and this world shall know true strength. Now, let us discuss our futures while we’re here; let’s not waste the rest of the night.”
“By your will then, my Lord Palpatine.”
Two days Later
“I don’t claim to understand the full scope of these sketches, Lord Robb,” said Maester Luwin, his voice holding fascination, fingers tracing the charcoal lines.
“This material is all new to me. Even today, my mind is dazzled by the nature of a brain that could conceive, let alone render, anything so absolutely remarkable.”
The old man glanced up, his eyes bright under his heavy brow.
“Throughout my entire time at the Citadel, I was taught that iron was the property of small, localized clay blooms.
We knew it as a grueling, laborious job, with men working unceasing shifts to pump hand-bellows for hours, anxious to keep the heat high enough only to get the slag separated from the ore. Get faster updates on novelping(.)com.
“But this…” Luwin waved at the parchment, his fingers a little unsteady.
“The furnace bellows are propelled by a waterwheel via a cammed axle to provide a steady, high-volume blast of air to the hearth.
The interior temperature would be far greater than anything the North has ever experienced.
The iron would be entirely liquefied for the first time, perhaps in history.
It is wonderful, young Lord.
Really wonderful!
And if the process of making steel so quickly and cheaply is completely learned, then Winterfell may have a larger advantage in steel production if a proper sphere is developed instead of just selling raw iron ore to the other eight Kingdoms.
‘You have vision, maester,’ palpatine thought to himself.
Luwin leaned closer, his chain clinking lightly in the room, his eyes on the youngster.
“Do you actually understand the magnitude of what you’ve created here?”
“Very much so, Maester,” Robb replied, his voice devoid of boastfulness, a calm that the maester had become used to seeing in a boy his age.
“We have Alchemist Walgrave to thank for his insights as well. He was instrumental in helping me draft the finer mechanics of the apparatus.”
‘It was a conniving half-truth.
While Walgrave had proven useful on other ventures, this design belonged majorly to Robb.
A quiet, familiar irritation simmered beneath his placid exterior.
The sheer annoyance of having to engineer a renaissance by his own hand was a tedious burden.
Almost every tool, every instrument, every fundamental concept required to lift this backwater realm out of its stagnant medieval mire had to be dragged from his own memory.
If he wanted to forge the North into an industrialized powerhouse and make something decent out of the carcass, it now was for more ambitious endeavors in the future—or at least ensure the absolute supremacy of House Stark; he had to be the architect of it all; he didn’t like getting his hands dirty, but these wise men around him were limited in their understanding of science and the world.’
Walgrave was industrious, certainly.
The man possessed a pragmatic, sharp intellect that far outstripped Luwin’s traditionalist worldview, and Robb had taken meticulous care to turn the man into his creature.
Yet, even Walgrave fell short of the true depth of knowledge Palpatine commanded, science-wise, that is.
The crooked scholar was driven by an insatiable hunger for the ununderstood science and forgotten truths, a flaw Robb had exploited.
Walgrave harbored his own dark dependencies and hidden demons; it had required very little effort to unearth them and bind the man irrevocably to his inner circle.
Walgrave had surrendered willingly to the leash.
He remained entirely ignorant of the supernatural forces at play, nor did he suspect what Palpatine truly was, but he knew far more than Maester Luwin.
Walgrave had glimpsed the mask behind the boy’s joyful and humble visage.
He knew Robb was no mere prodigy, no precocious child to be coddled, but a ruthless mastermind.
He simply assumed it was a freakish, mortal genius, never guessing at the unnatural truth.
In truth, Palpatine maintained a sterile fondness for both men; they were useful.
Luwin, despite his institutional blind spots, was a reassuring presence and a necessary buffer against the stubborn, unyielding traditionalism of Eddard Stark.
The Maester remained vital to his long-term designs, an unwitting asset whose administrative authority would soon validate and implement the very constructs that would secure Winterfell down the line for innovation and change.
And for all the promise of iron and mechanized bellows, a feudal society lived and died by its stomach.
Spending hours sequestered by himself and sometimes with these two old men—one a scholar of orthodox law, the other a compromised seeker of more knowledge—was a hotbed for progress in some ways.
He was using their collective expertise and his own to map out the initiation of a quiet agricultural revolution.
Spring was already here, and if the erratic climate of this world held true to its patterns, a long, drawn-out summer would follow.
The Starks would have years to consolidate their power and execute an unprecedented agrarian transformation if they could start immediately.
The paperwork had already been meticulously drawn up.
Funding was being routed through his bravosi friend for a massive requisition: heavy-wheeled plows to turn the stubborn northern earth, sturdier stirrups for draught-horse riders, and superior equine breeds, new farming techniques, and proper education on plant and farm care.
According to the Citadel’s historical records and Luwin’s conservative estimates, barley and oats were the only grain crops suited for the biting chill of the northern soil.
But Palpatine and Walgrave knew better.
The climate could tolerate a vast array of others if they were bred right, just like the hearty, high-yield vegetables like turnips, cabbage, kale, onions, leeks, and parsnips.
To Robb’s eyes, the North was a staggering waste of potential.
A vast expanse of untapped natural resources left dormant simply because generations of Stark lords had grown comfortable with stagnant traditions.
Millions of acres of fertile plains lay fallow because they either died out from hunger and the cold or migrated to better plains south, and countless valleys hid veins of gold, silver, and copper, untouched by a people who chose to remain poor because of proper vision.
Every year, the North bled coin.
Wealth that should have built towns was instead shipped south to arrogant Reach lords and Essosi merchants, purchasing grain at extortionate prices just to keep the smallfolk from eating their boots during the cold season.
That hemorrhage of capital would end.
The exorbitant expenses once wasted on southern grain would be redirected to secure the North’s absolute self-sufficiency in food.
Not just for the temporary residents of Wintertown, but for every hard-bitten tenant farmer whose family had ever been brought to the brink of starvation by a cruel winter.
Beyond the fields, the scholar had recently presented architectural drafts for Winterfell itself.
The man had a vision for restructuring sections of the ancestral seat—modifying the grim, suffocating keep into something more accommodating and functional without sacrificing its defensive integrity.
It was an ambitious concept: transforming a brutalist fortress into a seat of administrative power, a sanctuary that felt less like a damp prison and more like a summer manse, yet was utterly fortified against the inevitable return of the cold.
It was just another idea he had brokered in his head for the far future ahead, a time when ned was cast aside and he was the ruler of winterfell.
He would prefer a place of opulence, comfort, and wealth, one that also has strong defensive factors.
But now the northern plate was too full to really care about something such as aesthetics when they were constantly fighting against nature itself.
The maester stroked his chain, the links of iron and silver clinking softly at his hand.
He looked at the young lord, seeing the subtle spark of ambition and genuine care for the smallfolk in his eyes but also the dangerous haste that so often tripped up the young.
“My lord, if I may be honest,” the maester started; he looked troubled only slightly, grounding himself against the young man’s fervor.
“As you know, your father is a man carved from the old stone of these lands. He trusts what his grandfathers did, and he would and has done the same and continues to do so, the seasons, the sweat of the brow, and the gold in his coffers. He does not trust ‘endeavors,’ nor does he easily digest the wizardry we pull from the soil inside a glasshouse or from my chambers or what walgrave does from his hut in wintertown, the compass was a start, a fantastic start at that, and it provided a tangible horizon; we haven’t sold any yet, and I doubt it would be of much difficulty if we do. But Lord Stark still needs much convincing; I constantly try my best, but sometimes even my council doesn’t budge him, so how do we demonstrate a truth to a man who inherently distrusts the science behind it and cannot yet conceive of the prosperity it promises?”
‘Indeed,’ the sith lord agreed mentally.
He wanted to state that gold has a syntax all its own, and his father reads that language perfectly like any other.
It was and would be a game of coin at that point; something he wouldn’t deny.
The treasury was in need of more coin so long as it came honestly, according to the stark liege.
“We can only hope he gains more wisdom and changes his mind as we continue our mission of science, but until then I say we don’t give up in trying.”
At that, the maester smiled and patted the boy on the shoulder.
“Just as stubborn as he is.” the maester smiles.
Sorry for the delay.