Chapter 81: Dragonpit Exploration (Part 1)
At noon, while eating lunch, Ian further pondered the clues for the treasure hunt.
He had already sent Bronn and Roar to gather information around Flea Bottom, but they had not yet reported back in the past two days.
In other words, the clues he had were still only four: [Flea Bottom], [Underground], [Death], and [Ruins].
Honestly, if the damn limitation of [Flea Bottom] could be discarded, the target would almost certainly point to the Dragonpit.
The Dragonpit is a structure built by the Targaryen dynasty to house their dragons, located at the summit of Rhaenys's Hill in King's Landing. It is said that the Dragonpit's great bronze doors were once large enough for thirty knights to ride through abreast.
However, during the Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons, after Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen occupied King's Landing, a riot known as the Storming of the Dragonpit erupted. Incited by a crazed street preacher called the Shepherd, tens of thousands of starving smallfolk stormed the Dragonpit and slaughtered five of the Queen's dragons: Shrykos, Morghul, Tyraxes, and Dreamfyre, along with the Queen's own mount, Syrax.
Following the riot, the Dragonpit burned down and collapsed into ruins, perfectly fitting the "ruins" clue.
Then there's "death"—not to mention the deaths of five dragons and thousands of smallfolk in the Storming itself.
In the year 209 AC, a catastrophe known as the "Great Spring Sickness" struck Westeros, with King's Landing bearing the brunt of the disaster. Four in every ten people perished in a matter of months.
Even the "Good King" Daeron II, his two sons and heirs, the High Septon himself, a third of the Most Devout, and nearly all of the Silent Sisters in King's Landing died from the plague.
At the time, King's Landing was littered with corpses. In desperation, Brynden Rivers, the Hand of the King, had no choice but to advise the new king, Aerys I, to transport the bodies to the Dragonpit and have them cremated by the Alchemists' Guild. That night, citizens throughout King's Landing could see an eerie green glow shining through the ruined dome of the Dragonpit.
Therefore, if there's one location in King's Landing that best embodies the "death" clue, the Dragonpit is certainly it.
Finally, "underground" is a less obvious clue pointing to the Dragonpit, but since a significant portion of the structure is indeed below ground level—including vast cellars and dragon lairs carved into the hill itself—it's entirely plausible that the chest was hidden in its depths.
The only remaining question is—the Dragonpit isn't in Flea Bottom.
So what location in Flea Bottom could possibly fit all these clues? None. At least, as far as Ian could recall, neither the novels nor any of the supplementary materials mentioned such a place.
But there are countless details left out of the books. It's not impossible that some pauper's cellar in Flea Bottom contains a stone slab from some ancient ruin that was repurposed as a burial marker for the dead.
After all, the novels only tell a story, while this is a complete world.
Wait—speaking of wildfire, it seems that before the fall of King's Landing during Robert's Rebellion, King Aerys II ordered the pyromancers to burn the entire city, and was then killed by Ser Jaime Lannister, earning him the name "Kingslayer."
The wildfire conspiracy is definitely true, as many accounts later confirmed it. For instance, during the War of the Five Kings, when Stannis Baratheon's fleet threatened King's Landing, some whores plying their trade in the Dragonpit ruins stepped on rotted floorboards and fell into a hidden cellar with their clients, discovering caches of wildfire that had been stored there by the Alchemists' Guild during Robert's Rebellion.
In some accounts, there were even rumors that wildfire had been placed beneath the Great Sept of Baelor and other strategic locations throughout the city. While such claims seemed almost too audacious to believe, the existence of wildfire hidden in King's Landing's tunnels was undeniable.
Therefore, since underground passages containing wildfire are scattered throughout King's Landing, these clues must point to the chest being hidden in a tunnel extending from the Dragonpit to Flea Bottom.
At this thought, Ian grew excited.
If his hypothesis was correct, then the chest was already halfway into his grasp.
After all, to make the connection to the Dragonpit, at least three clues must be purchased, and purchasing three clues costs seven points. Given the near-impossibility of completing the main quest, a player must personally kill at least two other players to earn enough points to purchase three clues.
Such players certainly exist, and they're likely in either King's Landing or Pentos, but whether they're willing to gamble their points on this theory is another matter entirely.
Meanwhile, those players who haven't deduced the Dragonpit connection—whether they're searching for treasure or waiting to ambush someone—should be focusing all their attention on Flea Bottom proper.
Even if Ian and his men brazenly entered the Dragonpit right now, the other players wouldn't notice, would they?
At dusk, after donning the plate armor they'd commissioned at Tobho Mott's smithy, Ian, Roel, Kes, and Bronn, wearing their purchased surcoats over their armor, headed northeast along the Street of Steel toward Rhaenys's Hill.
Dorian the Black Falcon and his lieutenant, with two teams of men maintaining proper intervals, followed Ian's party at a distance. Their destination was the ruined Dragonpit atop the hill.
After a full day of searching, Roel and Bronn had returned with two conclusions.
The first was that death was a daily occurrence in every corner of Flea Bottom.
The second was that they hadn't discovered any obvious ruins within Flea Bottom itself.
Therefore, Ian chose the Dragonpit as his first target for exploration.
Just before dusk, Ian and his companions arrived at their destination.
Standing before the massive bronze doors, sealed shut for over a century, Ian finally laid eyes on the legendary structure.
Gazing at the charred, blackened ruins, its great dome completely collapsed and open to the sky, Ian felt as if he were touching history itself.
He didn't waste time marveling at the sight. After a brief inspection of the entrance, he ordered his men to begin searching for a way into the Dragonpit.
The area was nearly deserted, and Ian felt uncomfortably exposed.
In fact, as he'd climbed Rhaenys's Hill, he had noticed that the closer he got to the summit, the fewer people there were. Once he reached the Dragonpit itself, he could barely see a soul.
Well... actually, Ian suddenly heard some rather inappropriate sounds coming from the other side of a crumbling stone wall, and he amended his thought:
There are still some whores who are unwilling to give the brothels their cut and will hide in these ruins to service their customers.
After all, ever since Lord Petyr Baelish—"Littlefinger"—had used his position as Master of Coin to monopolize nearly all of King's Landing's pleasure houses, the commission rates had become increasingly extortionate, to the point that these working girls had practically become indentured servants to his profit margins.
(End of Chapter)
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