The borders of the Nilfgaardian Empire were typically guarded by steel and suspicion, but even the Great Sun could not ignore the pull of superior quality. Kevin organized the first armored merchant caravans—steam-carriages heavy with the fruits of the industrial revolution—and sent them South.
The impact was immediate. In the markets of Vicovaro and the heart of the Empire, the "Elder Goods" became the obsession of the elite. Mass-produced fabrics of fine wool and silk, cut in the sharp, disciplined lines of Victorian fashion, replaced the bulky tunics of the nobility. Agricultural fertilizers promised to turn the scorched earth of conquered territories into breadbaskets, while Kevin's refined medicines—pills that broke fevers and tinctures that numbed the most agonizing pain—were traded for their weight in gold.
But it was the mechanical wristwatches and the new alloys that truly stunned the Empire. In the capital, Nilfgaardian blacksmiths stared at the samples of elven-forged spring steel with open-mouthed shock. They tested the blades against their own best meteorite steel, only to see their legendary weapons notch and shatter against Kevin's high-carbon, chromium-infused edges.
"It is a metal without a soul," one master smith muttered, holding a wristwatch to his ear and listening to the relentless, perfect ticking of the gears. "And yet, it is more precise than anything we have ever forged."
The treasury of the non-human settlements began to swell with Nilfgaardian Florens and Novigradian Crowns. The small, hidden villages had evolved into advanced, red-brick towns, their streets lit by early electric lamps and their citizens dressed in the finery of a future age.
Kevin, however, remained unsatisfied. He stood in his laboratory, tapping his gold pocket watch against a map of the Continent's northern coast and the marshlands of the Pontar Delta.
"Steam is the heart, and coal is the muscle," Kevin murmured, his British accent echoing in the quiet room. "But if we are to reach the next stage—the age of the internal combustion engine—we need more than just rocks and water."
His scientific expertise provided the blueprints, but his world-building required the lifeblood of modern industry: Crude Oil. He began dispatching specialized geological survey teams, equipped with seismic hammers and boring drills, to locate the "black gold" hidden beneath the Continent's surface.
Kevin adjusted his top hat and looked toward the horizon. He didn't just want to build a better sword or a faster carriage. He wanted to build a world that moved on pistons and petroleum.
******
Under Kevin's relentless direction, the former No Man's Land was no longer a desolate, war-torn strip of mud. Several non-human industrial towns had sprouted like iron wildflowers, but at their heart stood the crown jewel: Taurus. It was a Free City designed to rival Novigrad, but where Novigrad was built on cobblestones and pyres, Taurus was built on steel, steam, and electricity.
Traders from Nilfgaard, Toussaint, Ofir, and the kingdoms of Lyria and Rivia began to arrive at the city gates, and their jaws dropped. They didn't see the usual wooden hovels or crooked medieval alleys; they saw red-brick warehouses, streetlamps that glowed without oil, and massive cranes moving with mechanical grace. Most peculiar was the speech of the inhabitants. The elves and dwarves of Taurus had adopted a crisp, clipped cadence—a British accent they had inherited from their founder.
"State your business in Taurus, and mind the steam-pipe behind you," a dwarven guard muttered to a Lyrian merchant, checking a manifest with a precision that bordered on the obsessive.
The foreigners whispered of the man behind the miracle. The documents and the city charter were signed by Caoimhín Dhu, a name in the Elder Speech that commanded respect among the Aen Seidhe. Yet, everyone in the city—from the highest engineer to the lowest dockworker—knew that the man himself detested the formal title. He referred to himself simply as Kevin, or Kevin Black, and he expected others to do the same.
While the city flourished, specialized teams were deep in the wilderness under Kevin's strict orders. In a damp, grey marshland far from the trade routes, a group of elves and dwarves stood around a bubbling pit of thick, black sludge.
"I don't get it," a dwarven scout grunted, poking the black liquid with a shovel. "Caoimhín—sorry, Kevin—is obsessed with this 'crude oil.' It smells like a wyvern's breath and stains worse than ink. What's he want with a hole full of muck?"
The elven scholar beside him adjusted his mass-produced spectacles. "He says coal is just the beginning. He calls this 'the blood of the future.' He claims that if we refine it, we can build engines that don't need boilers. Engines that can move faster than a horse and, eventually, machines that can fly."
The dwarf snorted, though there was no malice in it. "Flying engines? The man's brilliance is only matched by his madness. But then again, he gave us the revolver and the wristwatch, so I'll dig up every drop of this filth if he asks."
In his central office in Taurus, Kevin sat at a desk of polished walnut and steel. He checked his gold pocket watch, the rhythmic ticking a comfort against the chaotic sounds of the growing city. The Novigradian Crowns and Nilfgaardian Florens were pouring into the treasury, but his eyes remained fixed on the geological reports.
"Taurus is the heart," Kevin whispered, his British accent sounding more at home here than anywhere else on the Continent. "But the oil... the oil will be the lifeblood of the next century."