Chapter 85: Dragonpit Excavation Diary
Ian fell silent. These clues alone wouldn't reveal the truth.
If he could examine Bonn's body, or if he could personally inspect the scene, he'd surely uncover more clues, but neither was clearly possible.
The current situation could barely be considered one where the enemy remained hidden while Ian was exposed. If Ian had someone demand Bonn's body from the City Watch or personally inspected the scene, his actions would be discovered by the mysterious player, and Ian would be revealing himself.
Rather than that outcome, Ian preferred to let them kill his men in Flea Bottom while he searched for his own treasure in the Dragonpit, rather than engaging in a direct confrontation.
After sending the two messengers away, Ian didn't personally participate in clearing the collapsed rubble as he had during the day. Instead, he found a quiet corner and pondered the events in Flea Bottom.
If the murder of the 'bait' Bonn was examined in isolation, the landlady was undoubtedly the most suspicious.
Although his sellswords had observed a large axe wound on Bonn's chest, since Ian didn't have access to the body, the wound might not have been the actual cause of death.
If the landlady had poisoned Bonn, laid his body flat on the ground, and then, with both hands raised high, swung an axe with all her might, the momentum could easily have achieved the same slashing effect as a grown man in combat.
Unfortunately, Bonn's death wasn't an isolated incident.
Since several individuals matching the initial player profile had been killed in recent days, the perpetrators could only be players.
Ian knew it was normal for players to possess the power to instantly kill an ordinary sellsword at this point in time. For players with extensive combat experience from previous playthroughs, even a slight increase in their character stats could significantly boost their combat effectiveness.
But Ian couldn't understand how the enemy had managed to evade his three groups of sellswords, who were watching Bonn's courtyard from different directions, sneak into the courtyard, kill Bonn, and escape undetected.
Could it be that they knew the locations of my three groups' positions in advance? A sudden thought struck Ian.
If that were the case, it would be easy to find a way to avoid their surveillance.
For example, they could have accomplices create some distracting commotion nearby before sneaking in, taking advantage of the moment the sellswords' attention was diverted.
After all, climbing over a wall only takes a moment, and there are many ways to accomplish that.
But if the enemy truly understood the Foul Jester's team's tactics, they would have realized that Bonn was merely bait.
Normally, they should have tried to remain hidden and found an opportunity to capture the entire Foul Jester team in one fell swoop, rather than killing the bait and alerting everyone.
In Ian's opinion, someone capable of successfully killing so many players in Flea Bottom without being seen wouldn't make such a clumsy mistake.
Therefore, it's more likely that the enemy didn't notice the Foul Jester's team and simply mistook Bonn for a lone player.
In that case, the Foul Jester's team's carefully planned surveillance had failed to detect any trace of the killer, which was quite alarming.
Ian couldn't help but think, "I just hope the group of players who recently arrived from Pentos runs into this 'net' in Flea Bottom. That way, I'll have a chance to benefit from the chaos."
It was the fourth day since Ian had entered the Dragonpit.
After yesterday's efforts, Ian and his team hadn't even cleared a single crypt, but they had gradually mastered the technique, and today's operation was much more efficient.
That afternoon, they finally successfully cleared the first crypt, but unfortunately, they didn't find a tunnel inside.
Seeing the slow progress, Ian no longer cared about keeping his operation secret from the sailors of the Cinnamon Wind. Before dusk that day, he summoned all the sailors on standby at the docks to the Dragonpit.
To get them to share in the backbreaking labor, Ian paid them a fifty gold dragon advance in cash.
It was now Ian's sixth day in the Dragonpit.
Over the past two days, several more players had died, bringing the number of surviving players to sixty-four.
Two more suspected players had entered King's Landing aboard ships from Pentos. To monitor all three groups, Ser Grantham at the harbor had to reduce the number of men watching the initial group staying near the Street of the Sisters.
Unfortunately, these two new players quickly became problematic.
One discovered Grantham's followers and managed to shake them off, while the other was killed that same evening in the same manner as Ian's "bait," Bonn.
According to the sellsword Grantham had sent to follow him, no one had been seen entering the man's rented room.
Faced with this situation, Ian completely abandoned any plans to contest control of Flea Bottom until the Dragonpit yielded results. Under Ian's orders, the entire "Foul Jester" team ceased operations, refusing to deploy new bait and simply remaining on standby.
Furthermore, the "Foul Jester" team had yet to uncover the origins of the "Stranger's Curse."
This fueled Ian's anxiety. After two days of reflection, he had realized why he was so sensitive to the word "Stranger."
The Stranger, the god of death and the unknown, fit both the "Death" and "Sacred" clues.
While it was likely just his own paranoia, Ian still sent Bronn to Flea Bottom to investigate.
Since his safety in the Dragonpit was guaranteed, he wanted to see if this "Westeros's Number One Fixer" could bring him any surprises.
In short, the news coming from outside the Dragonpit in recent days was nothing but bad, and the situation inside the Dragonpit wasn't much better.
Ian and the others were basically clearing one crypt per day in the Dragonpit.
They had already cleared the third one today, but they still hadn't found the entrance to the passage that Ian had theorized about.
As the number of remaining [sept crypts] dwindled, Ian's anxiety grew. If his guess was wrong, then the time he had wasted in the Dragonpit would cost him all his opportunities.
On the afternoon of the eighth day after arriving at the Dragonpit, as the second-to-last crypt was cleared, Ian eagerly stepped inside, ready to personally search for the location of the tunnel as he had done with every crypt before.
However, at that moment, the sentry who was standing guard outside the Dragonpit came running in to report that Bronn was back and had captured someone.
This left Ian confused. He didn't know what Bronn had been up to, so he could only temporarily postpone the inspection of the crypt and go outside to see what was happening.
(End of Chapter)
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