Chapter 185: If you have milk, you are a mother
Essos.
Pentos.
"Damn it! Damn it! Still no sign of them!" Marco roared the moment he returned to the camp. Perhaps from spending too much time with the Dothraki, he had also picked up their manner of speaking. "Under Drogo's orders, his *khas* has searched all over Pentos, but we still haven't found any sign of Daenerys."
"It's not just Daenerys; that player, Daeron Grafson, is also missing. Our brothers laid a trap for them, but they never walked into it! Instead, all this commotion happened in Pentos!"
"Don't worry, I found a clue." Although the player named Fogo said this, his expression was grim.
Marco guessed that whatever he had found was not good news.
"I captured a spy who originally worked for Prince Hahazan," Fogo began to explain. "He claimed he saw the Targaryen siblings being taken away in a luxurious carriage, and they had a contingent of Unsullied guards. Although he didn't know where the carriage went next, I found another clue near the port. Many civilians saw a team of Unsullied desperately trying to save a burning inn. The description of the carriage they saw matched what the agent had described, and it had stopped right outside that inn."
"Are you saying Daenerys and the others were burned to death in there?"
"I don't know, but it's a possibility," Fogo said, his expression suddenly shifting as he shook his head. "No, that possibility has been ruled out."
"What are you looking at?" Marco asked, confused, turning to look toward the eastern sky. Against the black curtain of the night, a comet scattered crimson rays of light through the thick clouds.
"That bastard didn't just spirit Daenerys away—he hatched the dragon, too," Fogo's tone was bleak.
"So what do we do now?" Marco asked, at a loss. "All our plans are in disarray, and our early preparations have been for nothing."
"How long until you can defeat Drogo? Can you do it within half a year?" Fogo asked, forcing himself to remain calm.
"What nonsense are you talking about?" Marco couldn't help but say angrily. "There are no more players to kill. The third main objective is still a long way off, and we have no way to climb the leaderboards. At our current rate of resource acquisition, it will be difficult enough to defeat Jhaqo or Pono within half a year. Defeat Drogo? Are you dreaming?"
Since they hadn't participated in any of the major meat grinders, the resources they had acquired were far less than what the Ander Poole brothers had gained in Pentos.
"Uh…" Fogo choked, speechless for a moment.
To beat Drogo in the Dothraki way, they would probably have to max out all their stats except for mental power.
"By the way, why did you suddenly ask that?" Marco was the first to break the awkward silence. "Did you think of something?"
"If you were Daeron Grafson, and you had stolen Daenerys and hatched a dragon, where would you go?" Fogo asked, not answering directly.
"Astapor," Marco replied without hesitation. "When a player's time is so limited and there's almost no time to train troops, you have to grab ready-made, high-quality soldiers like the Unsullied whenever you can."
"And then? What would he do?" Fogo pressed.
"Capture Astapor? And then take the rest of Slaver's Bay?" Marco said after a moment's thought. "That's basically the canon route."
"It's possible, but not a certainty," Fogo shook his head. "If they followed Daenerys's original path to Astapor, then yes, abolishing slavery and seizing the city would be inevitable. But since he took Daenerys away ahead of schedule, he might not choose such a radical method. Seizing Astapor that way would destroy his credibility, and abolishing slavery would offend nearly everyone in Essos. That Daeron fellow is a cunning bastard. He played all of Pentos for a fool, and even Illyrio and Hahazan fell for his schemes. I doubt he'll do something so crude."
"Then what will he do?" Marco asked quickly.
"If I could have guessed that, we wouldn't be in this mess, with him having stolen Daenerys and wasted all our efforts!" Fogo suddenly erupted in fury. "If I had the choice, I'd really rather not be his enemy."
"Forget it," Fogo sighed. "Let's go back and find a way to tell Drogo that the man who cuckolded him went to Slaver's Bay. Whatever happens, we can't let Daeron find a safe place to farm resources. He has a dragon; we cannot let him build up his strength."
***
The Narrow Sea.
Onboard *The Breeze Goddess's Kiss*.
"He doesn't want to eat?" Ian, Daenerys, and the others around the table exchanged glances, looking at the black dragon, Ion, as it crawled around next to a small piece of roasted meat.
"Maybe we should find something else for him to eat," Daenerys said with a frown, "but I don't know what dragons eat."
"Milk, perhaps?" Ian suddenly remembered that in the original story, the first thing the three dragons did after hatching was nurse at Daenerys's breast. It was rather strange—they were oviparous, yet they still needed to breastfeed.
"Milk?" Daenerys didn't quite understand.
"Is there any milk on the ship?" Ian didn't answer her, turning instead to ask Darren. He then slapped his own forehead. Of course not, how could there be? With the preservation methods of this era, who in their right mind would bring something so perishable on a ship?
"How could there be?" Darren replied, looking puzzled. But his next sentence surprised Ian. "However, there are a few dogs on this ship, and one of the bitches just had a litter, so she should have milk."
What kind of luck was this? Ian subconsciously glanced at Daenerys. Was this the legendary protagonist's halo? Even if she couldn't produce milk herself, since she had hatched the dragon, was fate itself conspiring to keep it from starving?
"Hurry and get some! Quickly!" Ian ordered.
That dog was a true blessing. If not for it, Ian would have ordered the ship to dock immediately to find a source of milk ashore. They were not far from Pentos, where the coast was dotted with villages and densely populated. Ian wasn't worried about finding milk, but he was afraid of running into a Dothraki raiding party, which would inevitably lead to a fight.
Soon, Darren returned to the table with a small bowl of dog's milk.
Ian's first instinct was to let Daenerys feed the dragon, but an old saying came to mind: *if you have milk, you are the mother.*
*If I personally feed Ion his first milk, will it increase his bond with me? Could it even make him see me as his mother?*
Thinking this, Ian's hands were quicker than his eyes. He snatched the wooden bowl before Daenerys could take it, causing the girl to give him a confused look.
"Allow me, Your Majesty," Ian said perfunctorily. "Such chores are beneath one of your station." He then held the wooden bowl out to Ion's snout.
Sure enough, this time the little black dragon didn't ignore it the way he had the meat. He scrambled to his feet, flapped his translucent wings, and buried his head in the bowl to drink.
"He's drinking! This is the food he needs!" Seeing this, the girl instantly forgot her frustration at having the opportunity to feed him snatched away and cried out happily.
A moment later, the black dragon had finished all the milk. He pulled his head from the bowl, crawled forward two steps, and looked up at Ian with longing eyes.
"He's still hungry," Daenerys said quickly.
"I see," Ian nodded. "Is there any more?" he asked Darren.
"We can get more, of course, but the puppies…" Darren began, but a sharp glare from Ian made him quickly change his words. "The dog has plenty of milk. It's no problem at all."
*The puppies? Are puppies as important as a dragon? Don't bring that up in front of Daenerys, lest her sympathies get the better of her.* That was the message Darren read in Ian's eyes.
Having been with Ian for so long, he felt he was finally learning to read his master's intentions.
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