Vanderbilt was left in his office, alone with no friends nearby. Nothing to hold him back from his passion and no one to be unduly implicated in what he was about to do, truth is, everything he said to his advisory board was an absolute lie. He had a goal, to completely rid the city of disease, but in an age such as this that ambition is impossible to achieve. We sinply do not have the ability nor the know-how to do such a herculean task. So he began doing the next best thing...Mandates started flooding out of the Ministry of Health, banning bad habits such as spitting and uncovered coughing, expanding the workforce cleaning the streets regularly, amping up the requirments to be given the approval of the inspectorate, etc.

Yes, the next best thing was trying to brute force his way to victory, obviously that would never work, but it will get him as close as possible while he still has the ability to make decisions, the clock is ticking and work needs to be done fast. Vanderbilt's plans to save his friends and family from implication continued: Jacob, along with all nonessential workers, recieved a "sudden transfer" outside of New Winstam, Clein recieved a packet of money along with a letter advising him to flee, and Eleanor's driver changed course for a more remote holiday destination, the Minister's family should have already left the capital after they sent the telegram, so now the Crown will have to look in order to find an irrelevant Minister's trusted confidants and relations.

-------

The sewer and traincar line started to near completion months later, and Vanderbilt was hiring photographers to document the systems and collecting data on their influence to disease and general wellbeing with an emphathis placed on productivity and general happiness.  

The Crown observer was beginning to get suspicious when reviewing the sewer plans, there were several pointless rooms beneath the homes of key figures such as the Banker, Mr. Gougar. A quiet investigation was called, officially to check for government corruption. In the meantime, rumors of banditry around New Winstam started to make the rounds, the mayor soon hired mercenaries and formed a militia to "root out bandits." The Crown Observer promised Monarch support and called for a unit to be stationed in New Winstam. The mayor expressed his gratitude but insisted that they were not necessary, but they were forced upon him anyway.

Meanwhile Vanderbilt was about finished with his work, and right on time too as he soon found the Mayor within his office. They talked at length about the mayor's plan and Vanderbilt's part within it. His part was fairly small and half of it was already finished, all he had to do now was comission field nurses and set up a military hospital system for the "bounty hunters" chasing "bandits" in the New Winstam countryside. It was easy enough for a veteran such as himself, all he had to do was call in a favor here and there and suddenly there was a basic military hospital. 

Vanderbilt, having repaid his debt to the mayor, took it upon himself to abandon ship. He fled the city by boat, he looked back at the magnificient city he spent an all too little amount of time on, with its glaring imperfections. He remarked to himself how the city looks different from when he first arrived not too long ago, the streets were clean, horses were gone from the streets, more people were traveling, and there were more smiles to be seen everywhere. It was much closer to perfection than it ever had been before. He had done all he feasibly could for them... 

BOOM 

A cannonball struck the royal garrison.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM...

Followed by several other cannon rounds as Vanderbilt silently boated away from the rudely interrupted city.

It will be quite a while yet until the city can know this happiness again.