Chapter 99 Journey to Pentos
After clicking to accept the rewards, Ian was presented with three options for his A-Rank NPC vouchers.
[Veteran Mercenary Knight]
Strength: 24-30
Agility: 21-27
Spirit: 0-6
Skills: Advanced Swordsmanship, Intermediate Horsemanship, Intermediate Lance, plus other random skills.
Assets: Knight's Sword, Full Set of Chainmail, Warhorse.
[Unsullied]
Strength: 24-27
Agility: 27-33
Spirit: 0-6
Skills: Intermediate Swordsmanship, Advanced Spearmanship, Intermediate Throwing.
Special Ability: Fearless (immune to all pain).
Equipment: Leather Armor, Shortspear, Phalanx Pike, Javelins, Leather Buckler.
[Tiger Cloak Slave Cavalry]
Strength: 26-30
Agility: 23-26
Spirit: 0-6
Skills: Advanced Swordsmanship, Intermediate Horsemanship, Intermediate Hammer, plus other random skills.
Assets: Arming Sword, Morning Star, Full Set of Scale Armor, Warhorse.
Ian suspected the variety was due to his current location, sailing the Narrow Sea, poised exactly between Westeros and Essos. He took a moment to analyze the three choices.
The first, the Veteran Mercenary Knight, was a solid, if unremarkable, option. His combat potential was slightly lower than Ian's own theoretical maximum, comparable to that turncoat knight, Ser Grantham. He was a viable candidate.
The second was the famed Unsullied, the eunuch slave-soldiers of Astapor. Their strength attributes were comparatively weak, their upper limit barely surpassing the Tiger Cloak's lower limit. Ian knew this was no fault of their training; it was a biological reality. Without testes, their bodies could not produce the hormones needed for peak muscle growth, a deficiency that no amount of conditioning could overcome. However, the Unsullied possessed one shining advantage: the special ability, 'Fearless.'
Ian knew how this ability was forged. From the day of their castration, the Unsullied drank the 'Wine of Courage' with every meal—a foul concoction of nightshade, bloodfly larvae, black lotus root, and other secret ingredients. Day after day, year after year, they drank until they became numb to all sensation, incapable of feeling pain or fear.
For a complete army, this was an incredible advantage. The guarantee that a line would never break, no matter the odds, gave a commander precious time to find an opportunity to reverse the tide of battle.
But Astapor never sold the Unsullied individually, only in blocks of a hundred or a thousand, for good reason. For a single warrior, the ability was far less significant. After all, if a man ran you through with a sword, you would die whether you felt the pain or not. As for the trait of never breaking, Ian was only getting two NPCs this time. The concept of a 'rout' didn't apply.
He immediately ruled out the Unsullied.
That left the Tiger Cloak Slave Cavalry. To be honest, Ian felt the word 'slave' in the title was redundant. The Tiger Cloaks of Volantis were, by definition, a slave army. The name sounded as unnecessary as calling the Unsullied 'Unsullied Slave Spearmen.' He supposed the game's developers added the tag because the Tiger Cloaks were less famous in Westeros.
Ian was torn.
On paper, the Tiger Cloak cavalryman held a clear advantage over the mercenary knight. This wasn't because of the one or two points of difference in strength, but because of the Morning Star. For Ian's purposes, the lance was a nearly useless skill; he would almost never be in a situation to use one. A hammer, by contrast, was brutally effective in the close-quarters brawls and street fights he was more likely to face.
But then he considered the role he was playing, the narrative he had to maintain. Ian Darry, bastard of a noble house, gathering a few loyal Westerosi knights to travel to Pentos and swear fealty to the true king.
It was a perfectly normal story.
A Darry bastard arriving in Pentos with two Volantene slave-soldiers in tow? What in the seven hells was that? They likely wouldn't even speak the Common Tongue. He would have to invent another convoluted backstory to explain them, and when facing a man as shrewd as Illyrio Mopatis, Ian wanted no unnecessary complications.
He made his decision. He selected the Veteran Mercenary Knight option twice.
A system message popped up, informing him that his rewards had been dispatched and would be waiting for him at the port in Pentos. At the same time, the data cards for two new NPCs appeared in his library.
[Duncan]
Strength: 30
Agility: 27
Spirit: 2
Skills: Advanced Swordsmanship, Intermediate Horsemanship, Intermediate Lance, Basic Literacy (Common Tongue).
[Mundo]
Strength: 26
Agility: 25
Spirit: 2
Skills: Advanced Swordsmanship, Intermediate Horsemanship, Intermediate Lance, Intermediate Archery, Basic Literacy (Common Tongue).
"I've gotten lucky," Ian murmured, very satisfied with the result. One had maxed-out physical stats, and the other, while having average attributes, came with the highly useful bonus of intermediate archery.
***
In the two days after leaving Duskendale, Rohr made a full recovery, much to Ian's relief. It meant his twenty points had not been wasted, and more importantly, it gave him a crucial piece of information that other players likely lacked: the magical potions in the system store were not a joke.
With Rohr back on his feet, Ian's suspended training was put back on the schedule.
Since there was little else to do aboard the ship, his training regimen expanded from two hours before bed to a full-time endeavor. With the muscle memory from his advanced swordsmanship blessing, his progress relearning the fundamentals was visibly faster. It took him only four days to master the entire basic training process.
Time passed, and the voyage reached its final day. As per Rohr's plan, Ian engaged in a sparring session using blunted training swords.
Rohr sensed Ian's powerful desire to grow stronger, and so he followed his orders to the letter, holding nothing back. He rained blows down on Ian, the blunted steel still bruising him with every impact. If they had been dueling with live steel, Ian was certain he would have died at least a hundred times over.
It wasn't until the old captain's voice echoed across the deck, calling them to dinner, that Ian was saved from the day's torture.
But he knew this was just the beginning. This brutal process was necessary to transform the abstract data of the game into true, tangible strength.
"What's for dinner tonight?" Ian called out as the old captain approached, wiping sweat from his brow.
"Fish soup, of course," the captain replied, looking at him strangely. "What else would there be?"
*May the White Walkers take all the fish in the sea,* Ian thought, his stomach turning. Gods only knew how he had forced down that foul, unseasoned soup for the past several days.
"You go on ahead. I'm not hungry yet," Ian said, waving him away. The mere thought of the fishy smell made him want to vomit.
The captain chuckled. "Don't you worry, Sir. We'll make port in Pentos tomorrow morning at the latest. By then, you'll be free to taste any food you can afford."
---
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