9 Family

After the colosseum started its successful story Victor was finally able to focus back on his education and most importantly his family. He kept helping his mother and spent time with his sister whenever he could. He felt very well protected by the Di Natale family and didn't have to worry about frantically improving his personal strengths or his power.

After a few years in this world Victor came to realize that under no circumstances he wanted to fight for the Iron Throne. One way or the other the family that rules the seven kingdoms will suffer. It might not be today or tomorrow or soon, but one day every dynasty falls. And with the fall of the dynasty comes the eradication of the family. Victor would much rather improve his foundation in Lys and keep a certain balance between the many noble families in the free state. Even the idea of taking over Lys completely was later rejected by Victor. As absolute power always leads to absolute corruption. He might be able to control himself, but he will certainly not be able to control his children and grandchildren in the future. Too much power in a world of feudal lords seemed like a one-way ticket to hell for the Di Natale family, as they already were a military based family.

With the return of magic and potentially dragons keeping your status as one the ruling families of Lys was already enough to satisfy his desire for power. Victor would much rather focus on exploring this still relatively unknown world. Even in the books and television series of his former life, there was no way to show all the wonders of even Westeros and Essos, let alone the whole world. Interacting with the major characters of Game of Thrones while keeping a certain distance and making sure not to become a chess piece on the worlds cruelest chessboard was Victor's goal. He already explained himself to his grandfather. Keeping friendly relationships to most nobles of Westeros by inviting them to the island of pleasure, Lys, and supporting certain characters to gain their goodwill, but firmly refusing to have any political ambition for the iron throne. That was the way forward for the Di Natale family with Emilio, Amando, and Victor as the current and future leaders of the family.

But staying completely still would not be an option either. Even if this strategy would lead to a couple of generations of safety, if you constantly stand still, you will sooner or later decline. That is why Victor offered Medicine, Drugs and Weapons as goals for the future expansion of the family.

Victor will use the next couple of years to slowly improve his drug making ability in the world of Ice and Fire and slowly find ways to create drugs like Viagra, Aspirin or Penicillin. Viagra might be an extremely valuable drug for the city of pleasure, Lys. Aspirin would sell very well with nobles. Penicillin would be worth its weight in gold during the wars of the future.

At the same time Victor wants to enter the weapon industry. But industry on a large scale would be able on the small island of Lys. That is why the Di Natale family need a partner for the weapon industry. Placing this asset in Westeros would not be very safe. No ruling noble family would allow an industry like this within its influence without taking a major part of the shares.

The only viable partners would be the slave traders of the free states. As the Di Natale family has very good relationships with the slave traders of Slavers Bay, this would most likely be the place for this industry. A constant supply of cheap and strong labor would cement Slavers Bay as the most suitable location. By using this labor intensive and resource intensive industry, the Di Natale family would be able to slowly infiltrate the power of Slavers Bay. If one day Daenerys steps into slavers bay with only her dragons, Victor would have quite a lot of control over the situation.

Before the family can consider industrialization in its smallest form, we first need to research the technology. Over the next year Victor continued his training plans while improving drug extraction by himself. The Di Natale family was slowly gathering blacksmithing talents with the help of the Maar family of Lys. The colosseum is continuing to hold monthly events for the nobles of Westeros and Essos. No gladiator has yet to achieve the same fame and fortune as Atillius.

Atillius achieved even greater satisfaction in the last couple of months, as not only has his fame spread across the sea, but his wife Anika was also finally pregnant. Isabella grew to like the angelic Anika over the last year, which prompted her to accept the unborn child as godson or goddaughter. Atillius was further motivated and grateful to the Di Natale family and improved his training of gladiators even more. The trademark of the Di Natale gladiators and mercenaries kept rapidly improving over the past year. Many dignitaries bought trained warrior slaves from Amando Di Natale at steadily increasing prices. Many of those gladiators were soon fighting in the colosseum of Lys or in the increasingly popular private fights between rivaling nobles.

The spectacle of gladiator fights became extremely famous and even the king in the distant King's Landing grew envious. Aerys showed great promise at the start of his reign, bringing peace and prosperity to the Seven Kingdoms, but later descended into insanity. He is now in a slowly declining period of his sanity. The Defiance of Duskendale, which will take place in 277 AC, will be a landmark event during the reign of King Aerys II Targaryen. The Defiance will begin when Lord Denys Darklyn refused to pay taxes, demanding a new charter for Duskendale and certain rights for its citizens. It ended with the extirpation of House Darklyn and a severe rift between the king and his Hand of the King, Lord Tywin Lannister. 

The newfound passion of the king for the very expensive hobby of gladiator fights and the increased royal spending for constantly dying gladiators will certainly not increase this situation.