Chapter 72 Bounty Mission 2
This was bad news.
If Daeron's ship reached King's Landing in just over a fortnight, they would never get it back.
By then, Wilder and his men would have already presented the Iron Throne with a complete mountain of evidence.
King Robert Baratheon, grown paranoid and short-tempered with age, was already on edge after the death of his foster father, Jon Arryn. Confronted with proof of treason, he would undoubtedly unleash his fury upon the two treacherous houses without a moment's hesitation.
In that political storm, Daeron's vessel, the White Mouth, flying the Grafson banner of a burning tower, would be lucky to even approach the harbor. More likely, it would be intercepted by the royal fleet, seized, and impounded.
This represented a staggering loss for Ian. According to Daeron, a ship capable of sailing to Volantis, like the White Mouth, was worth at least a thousand gold dragons.
Of course, there was a silver lining. Having lost everything, Daeron was now completely at Ian's mercy.
Ian wasted no time, dispatching Rohr to escort Daeron to Duskendale. He instructed them to lie low and await his arrival once he had settled his affairs.
Next, as planned, Ian accepted the fealty of Dorian, the new Black Falcon. He claimed half of the remaining spoils from Taman Village before returning to the mercenary company's stronghold.
He also took a moment to finalize his build, allocating the three attribute points he'd earned from the Truth of the Black Falcon's Death quest to his Mental Strength.
Ian
Strength: 27
Agility: 24
Mental Strength: 6
Skills: Basic Etiquette, Basic Literacy (Common Tongue), Advanced Swordsmanship, Advanced Horsemanship, Intermediate Lancing
Attribute Points: 0
Skill Points: 0
Points: 25
Ian then summoned Dorian and Wilder. Carefully concealing his new authority over the Black Falcon, he orchestrated a final division of the loot.
When the accounting was done, Ian had secured a total of four hundred gold dragons from both parties.
Over the past week, the rate at which players were being eliminated had finally slowed to a crawl. On the sixteenth day of the game, the number of survivors stabilized at seventy-two. The net Ian had cast at the Crossroads Inn was no longer yielding new catches.
While the spoils were being divided, Ser Wilder's men had located a large number of victims from the plundered caravans. They also gathered the remaining worthless goods to be presented as concrete evidence of the raids.
With that, Wilder's preparations for his journey to King's Landing were complete.
Ian chose not to accompany them. He instructed Wilder not to mention his name or involvement, explaining that Wilder's chances of being granted the lordship of Darry were highest if he alone received all the credit.
The gesture earned Ian another round of heartfelt thanks from the ambitious knight.
After Wilder departed, Ian gave Dorian his own orders. The Black Falcon was to personally lead a team of his most reliable men to shadow Wilder's party. If the Iron Throne's judgment for Ser Symon's "rebellion" was a sentence to take the black, Dorian was to ensure Symon never reached the Wall.
As an insurance policy, Ian assigned both Bronn and Chiggen to Dorian's command.
With those plans in motion, Ian returned to the Crossroads Inn. He paid Ser Grantham's company and Denzel the Dornishman for two months of service in advance, commissioning them to continue their hunt in the region. He promised to return in two months to review their progress.
Having tied up all loose ends, Ian finally set out for Duskendale.
He couldn't bring the men he had gathered in Westeros with him to Pentos. To them, he was Ser Lucian Lannister. His next chapter required him to become Ian Rivers.
On the night he departed, a system message arrived in his inbox along with the daily settlement report.
[The number of remaining players has reached 70. Bounty Mission Two is now triggered.]
Without a second thought, Ian opened the mission system to review the details.
Bounty Mission 2: Treasure Hunt
Objective: The organizers have hidden a treasure chest in each of four cities: King's Landing, Oldtown, Volantis, and Qarth. Players may choose one city to compete in.
Reward: One Valyrian steel greatsword and 4,000 Gold Dragons. (The rewards are located inside the treasure chests).
Note: Players may purchase clues for this mission from the system store. Limit of 4 clues available for purchase.
A Valyrian steel sword and four thousand gold dragons? Ian's brow furrowed in consternation. Didn't the system say it would only provide 'extremely limited' resources?
"The bounty missions are only activated three times: at the start, when seventy players remain, and when twenty players remain," Anne, the system's guide, explained coolly in his mind. "In the end, the number of players who can acquire resources through these missions will be in the single digits."
"The vast majority of players will remain in a state of being unable to obtain any resources from the system," she continued. "The mission parameters are consistent with the established design."
"No, that's not it," Ian countered. "How are the players who fail to get anything supposed to compete?"
Anne offered no reply. The question was clearly beyond the scope of her authority. But Ian already knew the answer.
They were supposed to wait to die.
The rewards were there for the taking. If you lacked the strength to seize them, who was there to blame but yourself?
Ian could even deduce the planner's reasoning for triggering the mission precisely when the player count hit seventy.
By now, the initial flurry of activity had settled. Players who were willing to form alliances had already met, either joining forces or turning on one another. Those who had refused to meet their supposed allies were unlikely to ever do so.
The first major event designed to spark player conflict was over. The game had temporarily lost its most effective mechanism for forcing players to find each other.
Without external interference, the survivors would enter a long period of peaceful development.
So, the planners had decided to light a fire. They drew four circles on the map and announced a treasure hunt, using an irresistible prize to lure players into four designated arenas.
They were artificially creating four meat grinders to kick-start the next wave of eliminations.
The news was a bitter pill for Ian to swallow.
He currently held a massive advantage over the rest of the field. Without this bounty mission, he was confident he could maintain his top ranking, snowballing his lead until no one could challenge him.
But now, once this treasure hunt concluded, he would have at least four new, powerful competitors to contend with.
The most punishing aspect of this "game" was breaking out of the early stages. Players started with virtually nothing, making every small step a monumental struggle.
But once a player overcame that initial adversity—once they secured their first pot of gold—a thousand paths to power would open before them, and they could truly begin to master the game.
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