Chapter 12

Tyrion woke up after a well-deserved rest. Yesterday had been even more interesting than he expected. The foreigners had arrived with multiple flying machines and a group of guards who appeared to be very experienced and well-trained. However, they did not carry any swords or other recognizable weapons. Instead they carried long weirdly shaped metal contraptions which must have been the mysterious ranged weapons the books mentioned. During the negotiations yesterday, the foreigners offered to give them a demonstration of their weapons. This demonstration would be held this morning in the field where the flying machines of the foreigners rested. Afterwards, the foreigners would make true on their offer to King Baratheon.

Tyrion was especially excited for that second part, as he had always wanted to fly on dragonback as a child. Those flying machines were not dragons, but they would be the closest he could ever come to having his childhood dreams realized.

Tyrion then thought back on the letter he had written yesterday, the second letter he had written to his father in three days, which was also the same amount of letters as he had exchanged with his father in the last three years. The last letter had been mostly a warning about the military strength of the foreigners, with him asking for permission to act in Tywin Lannister's name as a side note. Now he had a concrete idea of just what the foreigners had to offer, which was basically everything he could think of and more. He told in his letter about everything he was planning to buy from the foreigners when he got permission from his father. This included not only the farming equipment, crop seeds and grass, but also books. The latest of which would be by far the most important, even though Lord Stark and Lord Baratheon had not realized it yet. If he could talk the foreigners into selling him books on engineering, architecture, alchemy, healing and, if he was lucky, their past inventions, the Lannister family might be able to replicate the ridiculous progress the foreigners had made in the last 500 years. If the other families didn't follow suit, the Lannisters might be stronger than all other Kingdoms combined after a few decades of such progress.

Letting the foreigners build factories in Lannisport where they produce goods for their own realms would only help this plan, as the Lannisters would be able to observe the construction and operation of such factories while the smallfolk learned how to make those goods. After some years, the Lannisters might be able to create their own factories from which they could produce their own goods and sell them to the rest of Westeros.

If Tyrion played things right with the foreigners, he might also be able to turn Lannisport into the main trading hub of the South. This was because the foreigners needed to transport their merchandise to the South by ship, as the road network in the North was nothing short of terrible. If they would sell their merchandise at Lannisport, the Lannisters would be able to make loads of money by acting as the middle man in all trade between the foreigners and the other Southern Kingdoms.

However, all these future plans depended completely on his father's approval. Tyrion would not put it past his father to refuse him out of spite, which would give other Houses the opportunity to make the kind of deals with the foreigners Tyrion wanted to make himself.

Tyrion walked towards the Great Hall, where his sister and her brood were already sitting. He arrived just in time to hear his sister screaming:

"Why in the seven hells did you think it a good idea to sell off a piece of the Seven Kingdoms to those barbarians? If you wanted gold so badly, my father would have been happy to provide a new loan to the Iron Throne. Instead you sold off part of Joffrey's inheritance to heathens just so you could continue your disgusting whoring and drinking habits!"

"Be quiet woman! It was not my decision to sell those lands, Ned decided that that would be the best option for the Iron Throne. Those foreigners also obviously overestimated the value of those lands, I do not believe House Stark has received an amount of taxes in the last thousand years from that region even close to what those people offered for it."

Tyrion was happy that the foreigners were still in their quarters, his dealings with them would become a lot harder if his sister managed to antagonize them.

"I do not care about how much gold they were willing to pay for it. You should never have allowed that stupid Northman to sell away part of the Seven Kingdoms!"

Robert than slapped Tyrion's sister in the face, screaming: "You will not insult Ned in his own home! If he decided that selling away part of his lands was the best for the North and the Seven Kingdoms as a whole, then you should accept that decision!"

Cersei looked furious but refrained from complaining any more, realizing it wouldn't do her any good here. Instead she turned away from her husband and started talking to her eldest son, who wasn't happy seeing his mother being slapped by his father.

Tyrion looked towards the other early risers at the high table, which included Lord Stark, his wife and his children. They seemed somewhat shocked at this public fight between the royals. The oldest daughter was even looking to Tyrion's sister with sympathy, not that Cersei needed any.

The following meal went over without any incidents. The foreigners came in later to join them in breaking their fast, but kept mostly amongst themselves. When everyone was finished, they were led out of the keep by the Stark guards towards the field where the flying machines of the foreigners still stood in all their glory. Some of the foreign soldiers were busy setting up some targets for the demonstration. They had even managed to procure an iron breastplate from Lord Stark. Tyrion wondered how well the iron armor would withstand the mysterious ranged weapons of the foreigners, although he feared that it wouldn't help against those weapons.

Once they had arrived, Lord Heisenberg introduced the apparent leader of the guards. "King Baratheon, this is Major Hilbert, the leader of our military escort. He will lead the demonstration of our weapons."

Tyrion was still amazed by the fact that the leaders of the Otherworlders didn't lead their armies in battle, and instead had experienced soldiers do it for them. Tyrion reasoned that it would likely mean that the armies were under better leadership, but it would also be very easy for the leaders of the military to depose the leaders chosen by the smallfolk and take over the realms. He was amazed that it had not happened yet for any of the realms that were visiting Winterfell.

After introductions, Major Hilbert proceeded with the demonstration: "The first weapon that will be displayed is the standard rifle of the German Army, the Heckler & Koch G36. This weapon is carried by a majority of our infantry and has a theoretical fire rate of 750 bullets per minute, although the magazines attached usually only carry 30 or 100 rounds. The effective firing range of these weapons is 800 meters, or 2625 feet in the imperial units used in your world.

One of our soldiers will demonstrate this weapon on the wooden targets from different distances, and will end this part of the demonstration with some shots on the iron breastplate that was graciously donated to us by Lord Stark for this demonstration."

Tyrion was overwhelmed by this information, but managed to note the firing distance, which was nothing short of incredible. There were very few bowman who were able to hit their targets at more than 300 feet, and these foreigners claimed that they could hit people at 2600 feet consistently.

The lead soldier continued with his speech: "We will start at a distance of 200 meters, or 656 feet for the first target and increase the distance with 656 feet for each successful wooden target. For each target, 2 single shots will be fired, followed by a burst."

One soldier moved to a pre-marked area, carrying his metal contraption. Once he arrived there, he aimed the metal tube, which was attached to the main part of the contraption, towards the wooden target. The Major warned Tyrion and the other watching nobles about the noise the weapon made, but they were still unprepared for what happened.

Immediately after Major Hilbert gave the command to fire, Tyrion heard an uncomfortably load noise and he even saw the weapon jumping back a bit in the hands of the soldier. However, he didn't even see the projectile that was launched, although there was now a hole in the center of the wooden target. Before he could recover, another shot was fired, accompanied by the noise and another hole in the target. This time, Tyrion could see a small metal object falling out of the weapon to the ground, but not the projectile that made the hole.

After the third call of "FIRE", Tyrion saw the real power of these weapons. Within a second, Tyrion saw multiple holes appear in the target accompanied by multiple instances of the now terrifying noise. Tyrion had no doubt that if a person would be standing in place of the wooden target, he would be meeting the Stranger. Even a group of people would all have been killed if the soldier had moved his weapon a bit during the series of shots. There was no way an army from the Seven Kingdoms could win a battle against an army equipped with these weapons. Seven Hells, even just the personal guard of these foreigners would be able to defeat whatever army most Lords could muster by themselves. If negotiations broke down, the foreigners could just take Winterfell with the soldiers they already brought in the castle.

Although Tyrion already knew this from the books, the foreigners now confirmed that they could easily conquer the Seven Kingdoms if they wanted to. Tyrion prayed that his father and sister wouldn't let their pride get ahead of themselves by angering the foreigners and giving them a reason to change their mind as he preferred not to be on the facing end of these weapons.

All other Westerosi were similarly stunned, most even more than Tyrion since he actually expected the foreigners to hold such incredible power. However, Tyrion's nephew Joffrey looked towards the weapon and target with eyes of wonder, want and greed. Tyrion hoped that his sadistic nephew would never get his hands on the weapons of the foreigners.

The test proceeded in similar fashion. Although the distance to the target kept increasing, the shooter kept hitting the targets in approximately the center. Tyrion suspected that the weapon had a far-eye attached to it, as the soldier looked through a small cylinder on top of the weapon every time before he made a shot.

Finally, they arrived at the iron breastplate. Tyrion had not much hope for the breastplate, seeing the ease with which the wooden targets were pierced, but he was still awed when the invisible projectile managed to pierce the armor completely. The wearer of said armor would no doubt have died from this shot. This also explained the lack of armor on the foreigners, as even full plate armor would not be able to stop other weapons from their world. The weird colors now also made sense, as they would help the foreigners to hide themselves in the countryside. If you could not be seen, then you could not be shot by others holding those monstrous weapons.

Tyrion remembered the tale of World War 1 he read in one of the books. Both sides in the conflict had been at a standstill for years, with hundreds of thousands of man hiding in ditches. If they held such weapons, running between both ditches in open field would have been a death sentence as the unlucky soldier attempting it would be picked off easily. This would favor the defenders and was therefore likely the reason why the conflict went on for so long.

King Baratheon then recovered from his shock: "Although those are cowards weapons, I can't help but be impressed by their power. Is it truly not possible for you to sell those weapons to us? The Seven Kingdoms would pay good gold for even a few of such weapons."

The German leader replied: "We are sorry about this, but we are not planning to sell any military equipment in the near future to any civilization on this planet. We first want to build up better relations between our countries before selling you any military equipment. Additionally, we have a set of rules to be followed during any war in our world, called the Geneva Conventions. We would first need to trust the Seven Kingdoms to respect those rules before we could sell anything that would help your country in a war.

We actually brought some copies of the Geneva conventions for you to peruse after we leave Winterfell. We hope that you would try to keep to those conventions during any future wars fought. Our willingness to trade and help will largely depend on how well those conventions and the other document we brought with us are followed. The other document being the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We are actually hoping that the Seven Kingdoms and other countries in this world will ratify the Geneva conventions in the future, as they were originally made for everyone's benefit."

And there was the first threat, Tyrion realized. If the Seven Kingdoms would not be holding themselves to whatever was written in those documents, the foreigners might stop trading with them. Instead, they might start making offers to the free cities or even the Summer Islands and make them more powerful in the future. However, as one of the documents was named after human rights and Tyrion knew that the other world had abolished slavery, Tyrion suspected that the foreigners would never be helping the slave cities in the future. This left Braavos, the Summer Isles, Ibben, Yi Ti and perhaps Pentos as the other possible places for the foreigners to trade with.

Although it wouldn't matter much if the foreigners strengthened the Summer Isles, Ibben or Yi Ti, it would be a disaster for the Seven Kingdoms, and by extension his House, if Braavos and Pentos became more powerful due to trade with the otherworlders. A more powerful Braavos could seize the Vale from the east and keep it as a colony due to its defensible borders, or it could seize the Stepstones and use them to control all trade in the Narrow sea. Pentos, although weaker, could do much of the same if given the opportunity.

Tyrion would definitely be reading these documents and hoped that they weren't filled with unreasonable requests.

Meanwhile, Tyrion and the other Westerosi were lead to the flying machines for the second part of this morning's demonstration. Although Tyrion was still overwhelmed by the weapon demonstration, he was still eager to fly.

When they arrived at one of the flying machines, the German leader asked everyone who wanted to fly to enter the enormous contraption. King Robert immediately walked inside, followed by Jaime Lannister and Barristan Selmy of his Kingsguard and Lords Stark and Cerwyn. Most of Lord Starks children also wanted to fly, with the exception of Sansa. Rickon wanted to go but was held back by his mother, as were Myrcella and Tommen by Cersei. Joffrey, after an angry discussion with his mother, joined them in the flying machine. Tyrion was the last Westerosi to enter, but was followed by Major Hilbert and another foreign soldier.

Tyrion was directed to small a seat of unknown material. Once everyone had sat down, one of the soldiers came to each of the Westerosi and did something to their chairs which he called 'fastening the seat-belt'. Those so-called seatbelts were apparently there to make sure nobody fell out of them during the flight. Once Tyrion's belts were fastened, he couldn't help but feel somewhat restrained, even though he knew how to undo them.

Jaime and Barristan didn't take well to those instructions, they refused to let the foreigners restrain them, stating that it prevented them from doing their duty. The lead soldier calmly replied that they either fastened their belts or were to leave the machine. After the King told them to "Hurry up and listen to them so I can finally fly", they stopped complaining and let themselves be strapped to their seats.

While the others were being restrained to their chairs, Tyrion looked around and admired the craftsmanship of the foreigners. Tyrion knew no blacksmith who could even come close to replicating this feat of engineering. The glass windows fit perfectly within the metal, the doors could 'slide' open fluently instead of opening outwards, and after they were closed it was almost impossible to distinguish them from the rest of the interior. Tyrion had also gotten a look at the seats of the riders of this flying machine, but couldn't make heads or tails of whatever was in front of those seats. It would need to be the proverbial reigns with which to control this machine, but Tyrion had no idea how it might work.

After receiving a last warning to not undo their belts, Major Hilbert also seated himself and ordered the so-called Cougar transport-helicopter to take off.

What happened next was unlike Tyrion had ever experienced before. The machine started to make a lot of noise and Tyrion felt himself being pressed into his chair. He heard a lot of the Westerosi make noises that indicated their discomfort, although there was one enthusiastic female cry in between.

Once Tyrion dared to look out of the clear glass window, his mind was blown. Beneath him, he saw the landscape of Winterfell and its surroundings, including the keep, which was rapidly becoming smaller. The speed with which they were flying must have been enormous, at least five times as fast as he had ever ridden on a horse.

Before a minute had passed, the helicopter stopped flying away from the keep and started to circle around the Keep. Tyrion thought the Winterfell Keep looked even more impressive from the sky. Actually, everything looked more beautiful from above. The fields full of wheat, the enormous Wolfswood to the west, the nearby hills and the now rather empty village of Wintertown.

Meanwhile, King Robert was laughing: "Take that dragonspawn! I, Robert Baratheon, am doing what you could not even hope to do!"

The Stark children were also looking outside of the windows in wonder, in contrast to Lord Stark himself who seemed like he regretted ever stepping inside this contraption. The foreigners were looking indifferent about this wonderful experience, and were trying to answer some of the younger children's excited questions.

"How does this machine fly?"

"By burning oil, energy is released which we use to turn the rotors on top of the helicopter. If they turn fast enough, they create enough lift to counter gravity and let the helicopter fly.

Unfortunately, neither the children nor Tyrion understood the explanations, even when the foreigners tried to simplify the explanation. In the end, they were advised to get a book from the other side of the portal on a topic called physics. This topic apparently covered how nature at large worked, and Tyrion was definitely interested in it.

Unfortunately, the flight came to an end way too soon and they landed on the same spot in the field as they left from. Tyrion could see the happiness in the eyes of Lord Stark and Cerwyn once the machine finally landed on the ground. In contrast the Stark children were disappointed that it was already over. Even Joffrey had overcome his fears during the flight and was now expressing his disappointment that they had already landed.

"Our excuses, Prince Baratheon, but we need to keep enough fuel to make the 600 mile journey back to the portal. We were lucky that we took some extra fuel in case we wanted to do such a demonstration, otherwise we couldn't have done it at all."

Tyrion realized that even the mighty machines of the foreigners had limitations. In this case it was the amount of oil they could bring with them on the plane. But even so, this machine was a superior method of transport compared to anything in Westeros, including the Targaryen dragons. Dragons needed to eat and rest after all, and this machine could keep going, as long as there was oil.

Once they went outside, Tyrion saw a worried Catelyn Stark being confronted with two extremely excited children. Robb and Jon were more restrained, but Tyrion could see that they had also been quite impressed by the flying machine.

Once everyone had calmed down from the experience, they were lead back towards the keep for a small meal and the second round of negotiations. Tyrion couldn't help but see most of the Westerosi looking significantly more fearful towards the foreign soldiers, and especially their monstrous weapons, than they did this morning.

AN: This fic is still alive! First, I want to apologize to all of my readers for the long wait. I was busy both with school and personal stuff and was not in a writing mood during my remaining free time.

I managed to find my muse back around one week ago. However, most of that time was spend writing a new Worm fanfic, of which the first chapter will be uploaded on FFN in a few hours. Most of my writing time in the next few weeks will likely be spend writing new chapters for that fanfic. Therefore, I will not make promises on what my future writing speed for this fanfic will be.

I will also stop writing review responses. I have thought about it and decided that they take too much of my time that could have better been spend writing new chapters of my fanfic. I will still read the reviews and will probably edit out spelling and grammar errors you point out. If you have a question for me, you can send me a PM and I will likely respond to it when I upload my next chapter for either fanfic.

Finally, I want to thank all my readers who are still reading this fanfic after the 3 month long wait, as well as everyone who favourited, followed or reviewed my story in the meantime.