Today was the day the furnace would be tapped, and Roman had specifically invited Lady Shella and Maester Tom to witness the event.
Lady Shella knew absolutely nothing about the intricacies of iron smelting, but even to her untrained eye, the massive, roaring blast furnace looked incredibly imposing. Maester Tom, on the other hand, was practically vibrating with excitement, frantically scribbling shorthand notes onto a roll of parchment.
As he observed the operation, the maester bombarded Roman with highly technical questions.
"Lord Roman, if your theories hold true, the sheer volume of iron produced by this single blast furnace could match the entire monthly output of a traditional mining lord's territory!"
"By the Seven, where did you come up with these ingenious ideas? Was your brow kissed by the Crone herself?"
"Maester Tom, please do not flatter me so heavily," Roman laughed, waving a soot-stained hand. "Let us wait and see the actual iron yield before we start celebrating."
But Tom was already entirely convinced. He had served at Harrenhal for years and had studied countless academic disciplines.
Simply standing near the furnace, he could physically feel that the heat generated by the white-flame coke was violently intense—far hotter than any traditional wood fire could ever hope to achieve.
If this miraculous process wasn't intrinsically linked to Lord Roman's terrifying magical secret, these blueprints would guarantee me an Archmaester's ring at the Citadel, Tom thought with a sigh.
Yet as he looked at the young lord, the maester's eyes softened with genuine affection. When the Citadel had first assigned him to the decaying, cursed ruins of Harrenhal, Tom had fallen into a deep, academic despair.
But the gods had opened a new door for him the day they dropped Roman from the sky.
After spending the last few months working closely with the boy, Maester Tom was absolutely certain that Roman Rivers was the savior who would finally shatter Harrenhal's grim fate.
Under Roman's leadership, House Whent would become the first family in history to survive the curse.
Composing himself, Maester Tom turned to Lady Shella. Acting as a translator, he carefully broke down Roman's complex industrial concepts—such as "coking," "thermal reaction," and "slag removal"—into simple, easy-to-understand terms for the old woman.
As the three of them discussed the economic implications, a loud horn blew across the yard. The first batch of pig iron was finally ready to be tapped.
Following the master foreman's shouted orders, the workers carefully opened the heavy clay plug at the very base of the blast furnace.
A blindingly bright, orange-white stream of molten iron gushed from the opening like a torrential river. Because the magical coke burned so incredibly hot, the liquid metal was perfectly smooth and entirely free of thick, sluggish impurities. The useless slag was easily siphoned off through a separate, higher chute.
A thin, ghostly layer of pale white flame danced across the surface of the molten iron as it flowed down the channels, slowly extinguishing as the metal settled into the waiting sand molds.
To ensure the cooling process wasn't disrupted by the elements, Roman had constructed a simple wooden shelter over the tapping channels. He planned to upgrade it to a proper stone foundry later.
But even with the shelter open to the breeze, the radiant heat pouring off the river of liquid iron was suffocating. Roman and Maester Tom quickly ushered a sweating Lady Shella away from the immediate area for her own safety.
The workers manning the molds were completely drenched in sweat, yet they couldn't wipe the massive grins off their faces.
"By the Seven! Just look at it flow!" a veteran blacksmith cheered. "Lord Roman must be the Smith made flesh!"
According to the quartermaster's later records, the blast furnace successfully produced roughly six tons of high-grade pig iron in a single, continuous tap.
When that staggering figure was finally presented to the Whent council, everyone present was struck completely speechless. It wasn't until Roman broke the silence by cheerfully announcing a massive silver bonus for the workers that the room erupted into cheers.
With a seemingly endless supply of high-quality iron now secured, Roman's grand modernization plan rapidly accelerated.
First, he completely overhauled the equipment of the Harrenhal garrison, replacing their rusted, mismatched chainmail with pristine steel plate and providing them with perfectly balanced weapons. Simultaneously, the forges began churning out a massive surplus of durable farming tools and heavy construction equipment.
With his logistical foundation established, Roman finally turned his attention to the melted ruins of Harrenhal itself.
When Aegon the Conqueror had unleashed Balerion upon the fortress three centuries ago, the dragonfire had permanently melted the upper towers and collapsed massive sections of the outer walls. The various noble families who inherited the castle afterward simply lacked the impossible wealth and manpower required to repair the gargantuan damage.
When Harren the Black originally built the fortress, he was the tyrannical King of the Isles and the Rivers. He possessed the terrifying authority to enslave tens of thousands of men to haul stone.
But today, House Whent only controlled the immediate lands surrounding the Gods Eye. Their population was vastly smaller.
And then, of course, there were the infamous curses lingering in the rubble.
But Roman feared no curse. With his Pale Flame burning brightly, he led a massive crew of soldiers and laborers directly into the deepest, darkest ruins.
The collapsed sectors were wildly overgrown with choked weeds, and thick, slimy moss clung to the blackened, melted stones.
The rubble had become a sprawling, miserable nest for venomous snakes, massive rats, and aggressive insects. Huge colonies of bats occasionally swarmed out of the shadows when disturbed.
Roman stepped to the center of a ruined courtyard, closed his eyes, and unleashed a massive, sweeping wave of Pale Flame.
Through his magical connection to the fire, he could immediately sense the ancient, lingering resentment soaked into the stones. He felt the agony of the slaughtered weirwood trees Harren had used for timber, and the sheer terror of the infants whose blood had been mixed into the mortar.
As the Pale Flame washed over the ruins, those horrific, blood-soaked memories violently rushed into Roman's mind once again. However, having already processed the horrific history during his battle with Harren's ghost, Roman remained perfectly calm.
He didn't fight the visions. He methodically and gently purged the lingering resentment from the masonry. Under the soothing, purifying influence of the draconic magic, the ancient pain finally evaporated completely.
When Roman opened his eyes, the transformation was staggering.
The dark, chaotic, nightmare-inducing ruins had been completely cleansed. The venomous insects, the rotting weeds, and the cursed moss had all been reduced to fine white ash.
Following Roman's sharp commands, the workers boldly advanced into the purified rubble and began dismantling the massive, pristine stone bricks that had survived the original dragonfire. Roman had a grand purpose for this ancient masonry.
The Riverlands were geographically defined by a massive, chaotic network of rivers and fast-flowing streams feeding into the Trident and the Gods Eye. Many of these waterways were not even marked on official royal maps.
These treacherous rivers physically fractured the Riverlands. Because of the decentralized feudal system, individual lords rarely collaborated to build large-scale infrastructure to connect their lands.
This geographical nightmare was precisely why the treacherous Walder Frey held so much political power; the Twins were the only reliable, large-scale crossing over the mighty Green Fork.
Roman had no intention of wasting generations building a colossal fortress-bridge like the Freys.
Instead, he planned to rapidly construct dozens of sturdy, reliable stone bridges across the smaller rivers and streams connecting the local towns and farming villages, creating a seamless logistical network for both trade and rapid military deployment.
"Easy now, lads! Keep those blocks steady!" a foreman shouted as the workers carefully hoisted the massive black bricks onto heavy wagons. "These stones are going to form the foundation of the new river crossings, so try not to chip the edges!"
Watching the workers systematically dismantle a massive chunk of a fallen wall, Maester Tom couldn't help but voice his lingering doubts.
"My lord, is it not a profound waste to use the legendary black stone of Harrenhal simply to pave dirt roads and build peasant bridges?"
Roman smiled and shook his head. "Maester Tom, let me ask you a simple question. What genuine use do these collapsed, scattered stones provide us right now?"
"Well... none, I suppose. They just sit there."
"And if I take those useless stones and use them to build a network of bridges across our territory, will it drastically speed up the movement of our merchant caravans, the deployment of our troops, and the collection of our taxes?"
"...It certainly would, my lord."
"Exactly! Leaving these magnificent stones to gather dust in a cursed ruin is the true waste. We are liquidating dead assets and directly reinvesting them into the economic lifeblood of our territory."
As Roman's grand logistical plan swung into motion, massive convoys of stone were transported out of the ruins. Some blocks were used to perfectly patch the crumbling sections of Harrenhal's outer curtain walls, while the vast majority were sent into the countryside to serve as heavy bridge piers.
Surprisingly, the people of Harrenhal—including Lady Shella—raised absolutely no objections to Roman's aggressive, almost destructive dismantling of the ancient fortress. In fact, they were overjoyed to see the rubble cleared away.
The deepest ruins had always been a source of sheer terror. Even with Roman having incinerated the ghosts, the melted, jagged silhouette of the rubble had remained deeply eerie at night.
But now, after being aggressively purified by the Pale Flame, the atmosphere of the "ghost castle" had completely shifted from oppressive dread to vibrant, bustling life.
Curiously, after being baked by Roman's draconic magic, the once-black stones had turned a beautiful, warm, milky-white color, and they constantly emitted a very faint, pleasant, clean fragrance.
Roman used the smaller, purified white bricks to repair and upgrade the servants' quarters and the lower courtyards. Knowing he would eventually need to dramatically increase Harrenhal's population, he was actively upgrading the castle's internal infrastructure—installing proper stone-paved roads, digging clean water canals, and laying the groundwork for a functioning sewer system.
The five colossal, cursed towers that had cost Harren the Black forty years and thousands of lives to build were slowly, methodically being devoured by the boy from another world.
Piece by piece, Roman was taking the bloody, horrific tax Harren had violently extracted from the Riverlands and finally returning it to the people in the form of prosperity and progress.
More PS = More chapters!