The Kingsroad was bustling with travelers.
Arthur's procession departed Harrenhal, heading southeast. Their first stop: the ruins of Whitewalls.
The old Lord Butterwell had once served as Hand of the King to Aegon IV, the Unworthy, and had hosted the notoriously lustful king at his castle for a night.
Rumor had it that the King managed to impregnate all three of Lord Butterwell's daughters during that single night. In return for his "hospitality," the King gifted House Butterwell a dragon egg.
Arthur wasn't entirely sure if his own faint trace of "Dragonblood" came from House Butterwell or his supposed ancestors, the "pimps" of House Lothston, but House Butterwell was the most statistically likely source.
Arthur was probably a fourth-generation fringe dragonseed. It wasn't exactly a valuable commodity; there was a literal gaoler working in the Red Keep dungeons named Rennifer Longwaters who also had Targaryen blood.
Ever since the "Dance of the Dragons," House Targaryen had married off numerous princesses to other noble houses.
Combine that with the endless, prolific whoring of Aegon the Unworthy, and the realm was practically swimming in fringe dragonblood.
What was truly rare was the direct, uncontaminated bloodline descending from Aegon V, the "Unlikely."
Alyn "Oakenfist" Velaryon and Princess Baela Targaryen (Aegon the Unworthy's aunt) had children. Aegon's cousin, Princess Elaena, had bastards and legitimate children alike, giving birth to a total of seven children across her life.
Another of Aegon's aunts, Princess Rhaena, ultimately married Garmund Hightower, the younger brother of the Lord of Oldtown, and bore him six daughters.
And then there was Aegon the Unworthy himself, who scattered his seed across the known world, even leaving descendants in Braavos.
Because these fringe bloodlines were so diluted and distant from the Iron Throne, the rest of the world simply ignored them.
The only "pure" Targaryen blood left in the world belonged to Viserys and Daenerys.
The closest living relatives to the royal family were the Baratheons, descended from a Targaryen marriage three generations back.
---
Arthur finished gnawing on an ear of roasted sweet corn. Nothing beats the stuff you grow yourself.
These enhanced sweet corns were ultimately just crops—their only magical properties were massive yields, incredible flavor, and perfect aesthetics.
But that was more than enough. The lords, gourmands, and merchant princes of King's Landing had tasted the best the world had to offer; they knew a superior product when they tasted one.
"Will eating this corn truly extend a man's life?" Ser Lucas Dayne asked. The flavor was certainly unique; it made sense that it was completely dominating the high-end market in the capital.
"That's just advertising. A slight exaggeration for the sake of sales," Arthur replied with an easy smile.
Harrenhal Sweet Corn: Delicious, Nutritious, and Grants a Long Life!
The delicious and nutritious parts were true. The "long life" part was pure marketing spin.
It was no different from modern companies slapping "organic," "all-natural," or "superfood" labels on their products, or the claims that eating shark fin soup or certain herbs would dramatically boost a man's vitality.
As long as the marketing hit the right notes, the price went up.
"Corn is just corn, after all. It's not a magical plant," Arthur mused.
As far as Arthur knew, the only truly magical plants in the world were the white-wood weirwoods (the heart trees) and the black-wood shade-of-the-evening trees.
Both plants radiated an intense aura of ancient magic.
(Perhaps the ruins of Valyria harbored similar supernatural flora, but no one who went there ever came back to report it.)
Weirwoods were bone-white, while shade trees were pitch-black. The doors of the House of Black and White in Braavos were famously constructed from both woods.
These black-barked trees grew near the House of the Undying in Qarth, and their deep blue leaves were used to brew shade-of-the-evening.
Heart trees lived practically forever and essentially functioned as a supernatural CCTV network for greenseers.
Drinking shade-of-the-evening aggressively stimulated a person's magical perception and mental faculties; the warlocks of Qarth drank so much of it that their lips permanently stained blue. The heart trees seemed to possess similar mind-expanding properties.
Even enhanced by his [Seed Vault], corn was still just corn. It had no potential to become a magical artifact.
It was highly nutritious and incredibly delicious, but that was the ceiling.
Perhaps if he leveled up his [Greenhand] class high enough, he could push the seeds further, but for now, they were just very good food.
Expecting a piece of corn to instantly alter his lifeform or purify his spiritual energy was absurd. He'd have to eat corn for a century just to gain a fraction of a stat point; the effect was completely negligible.
"Regardless, the price is high, and the gold is flowing steadily," Ser Lucas nodded with a smile.
The relationship between House Dayne and House Whent was built purely on genuine friendship. But if House Whent could restore its immense wealth and power, it would naturally benefit House Dayne as well.
As an ancient, traditional "Swordmaster House," House Dayne possessed legendary prestige, but they were actually quite isolated. They rarely interacted with the outside world, unlike another ancient house: House Hightower of Oldtown.
House Hightower was a completely different beast. They possessed unimaginable wealth, the largest port in Westeros, control of the Faith of the Seven (historically), and the Citadel of the Maesters. They were the ultimate apex predators, arguably the only non-Lord Paramount house that firmly ranked in the top ten most powerful houses in the realm.
House Hightower alone commanded five vassal houses that were full lordships in their own right, not to mention countless landed knights.
"The ruins of Whitewalls are just ahead!" Wylis Wode called out, riding back from the vanguard.
"Good," Arthur spurred his horse forward.
The ruins of Whitewalls actually weren't that hard to find.
Although Bloodraven had famously declared that the castle would be torn down so completely that no one would even remember where it stood, salting the earth made the location painfully obvious.
Since House Butterwell survived the purge (barely), and Bloodraven was eventually exiled to the Wall, people eventually figured out where the ruins were.
The ruins sat near the Gods Eye, nestled between the eastern shore of the lake and the Kingsroad.
When Arthur finally saw the ruins of Whitewalls, the only word that came to mind was: barren.
The land surrounding the Gods Eye was the absolute pinnacle of agricultural real estate in Westeros. It rivaled the Crownlands, the Rowan lands, the plains of Highgarden, and the fertile crescent near Oldtown.
While the Vale, the North, the Westerlands, and the Stormlands all possessed fertile pockets, they all suffered from severe geographic or climatic drawbacks.
Yet, amid this endless ocean of vibrant green, there sat a massive, jarring patch of dead, barren, yellow earth.
The magnificent, opulent castle that once stood here had been systematically dismantled stone by stone by Bloodraven, and the earth beneath it heavily salted.
After the Second Blackfyre Rebellion, Lord Ambrose Butterwell had been allowed to keep his life, his new Frey bride, and a mere tenth of his vast fortune, but Whitewalls was confiscated by the crown and completely eradicated.
From that day forward, House Butterwell—a family that had produced two Hands of the King and possessed wealth rivaling the Lannisters—suffered a total collapse.
By the time the title passed down to Arthur Whent's mother, the "Earldom" of Whitewalls was essentially absorbed into the Harrenhal domain.
Arthur technically held the title of Earl of Whitewalls, but the "Third Whitewalls" that currently existed was a pathetic, dilapidated shadow of the magnificent white fortress it once was.
"House Butterwell rose through commerce, and fell through politics," Ser Lucas remarked with a sigh as they halted their horses at the edge of the salted ruins.
The Butterwells of Whitewalls were another classic example of Riverlands nouveau riche.
At the absolute peak of their power, they served as Hand of the King under both Aegon IV and Daeron II (the old Lord Butterwell and his grandson, Lord Ambrose).
House Butterwell was once obscenely wealthy and influential. Their primary source of income was a massive monopoly on the dairy trade, which earned them the mocking moniker of having "milk blood."
But beyond dairy, they also ran a massive, highly lucrative wine operation, producing vintages that were widely considered the absolute best in the realm outside of the Arbor.
Flush with unimaginable wealth and political power, House Butterwell embarked on a massive vanity project: building a brand-new, spectacular castle.
Whitewalls was a vision in white, colloquially known by the smallfolk as the "Milkhouse." The walls, keeps, and towers were constructed entirely from premium white stone quarried in the Vale and transported over the Mountains of the Moon at exorbitant cost.
The floors and pillars within the castle were carved from milky-white marble veined with natural gold, and the ceiling beams were carved entirely from the bone-white trunks of ancient weirwood trees.
But as ruthless businessmen, the Butterwells tried to hedge their bets during the Blackfyre Rebellions, attempting to play both sides to ensure they always came out on top.
History proved that fence-sitters rarely survive when dragons dance. This duplicity was the direct cause of their absolute ruin.
During the First Blackfyre Rebellion, Lord Ambrose Butterwell split his investments: his eldest son fought for King Daeron II, while his second son joined Daemon Blackfyre's rebels. Both sons died at the Battle of the Redgrass Field.
His youngest son subsequently died during the Great Spring Sickness.
Having outlived all his sons, Lord Ambrose took a new, young bride from House Frey and decided to host a massive tourney at Whitewalls to celebrate the marriage, offering his prized dragon egg as the grand prize.
In reality, the entire tourney was an elaborate, treasonous conspiracy orchestrated by Blackfyre loyalists to crown Daemon II Blackfyre.
By allowing Whitewalls to become the epicenter of the Second Blackfyre Rebellion, House Butterwell sealed its doom.
Looking at the desolate, salted wasteland, Arthur couldn't help but think that the Game of Thrones was an incredibly dangerous table to sit at—especially for the lords of the Riverlands.
They lived in the dead center of the continent with absolutely zero geographic buffers. It was entirely too easy for a king to march an army straight to their front doors.
By contrast, House Yronwood of Dorne had openly supported the Blackfyre rebellions three or four times. The Targaryens were gone, yet House Yronwood was still sitting pretty in their mountains, maintaining their status as the second most powerful house in Dorne and the undisputed Wardens of the Stone Way.
"Let's go," Arthur said to Ser Lucas, turning his horse away.
This barren earth was the past. They were heading to the current Whitewalls Town, to see if this dead land could be resurrected.
Arthur led his retinue a short distance down the road to a bustling little settlement that could accurately be called "Neo-Whitewalls."
The new seat of the Earl of Whitewalls sat in the center of the town. It was small, sturdy, and utterly, depressingly mediocre.
There was no money left for white marble from the Vale; it was built from cheap, ordinary white bricks.
The only things that vaguely recalled their past glory were the modest vineyards and small dairy farms clinging to the outskirts of the town. But their scale was absolutely pitiful compared to the Butterwell empire of old.
When Bloodraven decided to eradicate a threat, he didn't mess around. He truly earned his reputation as one of the most ruthless men in Westerosi history.
Bloodraven didn't just confiscate the castle; he seized all their elite, selectively bred dairy cows and ordered their ancient, premium grapevines ripped out by the roots and burned.
Selectively breeding elite dairy cattle and cultivating world-class vineyards were incredibly slow, painstaking processes that required decades of generational effort and massive capital investment.
Trying to rebuild that empire from scratch was a monumental, agonizing struggle.
The "Whitewalls" brand name still carried some weight regarding wine and dairy, but their production volume was negligible, and the quality was a massive downgrade from their legendary past. Their ability to generate real wealth had flatlined.
Looking at the struggling dairy farms and the meager vineyards, Arthur realized this was going to be a thorny problem to solve.
However, if he could level up his [Greenhand] skill and unlock something like enhanced alfalfa seeds, he was confident he could resurrect the Butterwell empire.
"Young Master Arthur!"
"Young Master Arthur!"
The castellan of Whitewalls, Ambrose Rivers, hurried forward with a small group of retainers to welcome Arthur to his domain.