c6: Main Mission 1
The five major cities of Westeros King's Landing, Oldtown, Lannisport, White Harbor, and Gulltown are the realm's most prominent port cities and population centers. All five contribute directly to the treasury of the Iron Throne and serve as commercial and political hubs in their respective regions. Tournaments held in these cities are often grand affairs, drawing noble houses, ambitious knights, and even famed sellswords from across the Seven Kingdoms and beyond.
And jousting the iconic martial sport of the nobility is central to these events. It's not just entertainment; it's a battlefield for reputation, prestige, and marriage alliances. Winning a jousting championship, even in Gulltown, the fourth-largest of the five, marks a knight as elite. As for White Harbor, though geographically expansive, it lies deep in the North, where jousting is rare due to cultural and practical reasons. The Northern lords favor melee and axe duels; there are few tournaments, and even fewer lances.
So Ian understood the implications immediately. To be told to win a formal joust in these five cities even one was a monumental task. It wasn't just about skill. The logistics alone were a barrier.
A proper jousting harness was vastly different from standard battlefield armor. In the lists, armor typically exceeded 4 mm in thickness, designed specifically to absorb the tremendous kinetic force of two knights charging on destriers at full gallop. Such armor was expensive—far more so than the 2 mm-thick plate used in war. And jousting horses weren't just common warhorses; they were bred for size, stability, and stamina Andal bloodlines, destriers that cost as much as a knight's yearly income.
Ian, like most mercenary knight players, possessed only a patched-up chainmail hauberk and a serviceable but unspectacular garron a docile, mixed-blood steed. In other words: no tournament-ready armor, no worthy mount, and no banner to announce his name.
Of course, if one were particularly skilled or foolish he could still enter. But Ian knew better than to overestimate himself. In his mind, his initial strategy was to pursue local melees or peasant blade tournaments hosted by minor lords or merchant sponsors events with lower stakes and less demanding entry requirements.
"So... what does 'Replace' mean here?" Ian asked the system internally.
"We've designed a minimum of three unique questlines per profession," Anne explained. "After viewing all options, the player may select one to proceed. Once accepted, the mission cannot be changed."
That made sense. Ian, already cautious by nature, tapped [Replace], hoping the next option would offer something more grounded. Something practical.
A new prompt appeared:
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[Main Mission 1: The Robber's Road]
Description: It's said that hedge knights and robber knights are but two faces of the same coin. You may never have stolen from the weak, but your kind is blamed for every broken road and burned village. So why not embrace the name they've given you? After all, honor doesn't fill a stomach.
Objective: Raid a castle or estate belonging to a landed knight or minor noble. Accumulate loot exceeding 100 gold dragons in value.
Reward: 5 Points, 3 Attribute Points, 3 Skill Points.
[Accept] [Replace]
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Ian stared blankly at the screen.
"Sack a castle? And steal 100 gold dragons' worth of loot?" he whispered. His expression changed entirely, the weight of the mission pressing down like a millstone.
This was madness.
Even if he targeted the poorest knight in the Riverlands, a lone knight in a forgotten corner with a crumbling stone keep and no garrison, he'd still need to face at least one trained knight, an attendant, possibly a maester, and a few loyal smallfolk. It wouldn't be an open field duel. This would mean breaking into or assaulting a fortified holding even a modest one.
Could he win that kind of fight? Maybe. Barely. But what could he realistically expect to loot?
The most valuable possessions in a minor knight's hall would be his armor, warhorse, maybe a sword passed down generations, and a few silver heirlooms. Even at high market value, such items rarely totaled more than 30 to 40 gold dragons and that was being generous.
To steal 100 gold dragons' worth of treasure, Ian would need to rob at least three or four such holdings or target a single richer knight and hope the plunder was unusually valuable.
And doing that without alerting the local liege lords? Without being hunted down and strung up as a common outlaw?
Ian exhaled slowly, a cold pressure forming behind his eyes.
What does 100 gold dragons even represent in Westeros?
To put it in context:
One gold dragon could feed a small family for a month.
A common soldier earned 1 silver stag per day it would take years to save 100 gold dragons.
A master blacksmith in King's Landing might earn 10 dragons a year.
For Ian to loot that much meant striking down not just a knight, but a noble's economy.
This wasn't a quest. This was a death sentence disguised as an opportunity.
He closed the window and stepped away from the system interface.
This game didn't believe in safety nets. There was no "starter mission" with easy bandits or rats in a cellar. Every path forward was a trial by fire and fire, in Westeros, was often fatal.
In the original A Song of Ice and Fire books, after King Joffrey Baratheon was poisoned at the infamous Purple Wedding, Ser Addam Marbrand a loyal bannerman of House Lannister issued a royal bounty for Sansa Stark, accused of conspiring with Tyrion Lannister, the so-called "Imp", in the king's murder. The reward? A mere 100 gold dragons. That was the official price for a highborn fugitive suspected of regicide.
By comparison, Ian's current mission felt utterly absurd.
Take a top-tier knight's full equipment: a complete suit of high-quality plate armor, a matched pair of forged weapons perhaps a Valyrian-style longsword and a blunt warhammer plus a trained warhorse and two packhorses for travel. Altogether, such a setup might cost no more than 30 gold dragons.
Yet even that was beyond the reach of most knights in Westeros. Only the wealthier knights of the Reach, especially those owning fertile manors or collecting steady tithes from tenant farmers, or the gold-rich knights of the Westerlands, whose families mined the hills around Casterly Rock, could afford such a loadout. And even then, affording it meant sacrificing comfort perhaps even taking loans from the Iron Bank or richer houses.
Elsewhere, the standards dropped drastically. Knights of the Vale often wore mixed plate and mail due to the mountainous terrain. Knights in the Stormlands, long plagued by bad weather and war, usually relied on secondhand plate armor or battered sets inherited over generations. In the Riverlands, the situation was worse many still wore chainmail hauberks, just as they had a century ago during the Blackfyre rebellions.
"This quest was designed for the Excalibur of Westeros, not some hedge knight like me," Ian thought bitterly. "All I need to do is cut down six Kingsguard and strip their armor. Done." The thought was so absurd, he almost laughed.
Forcing himself to calm down, Ian tapped [Replace] once more, clinging to his last shred of hope.
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[Main Mission 1: Golden Road]
Description: The first time you lifted a sword for coin not duty or fealty you glimpsed the true god of this world. Not the Seven, nor the Old Gods, nor R'hllor. It was gold. Everything else is illusion.
Objective: Accumulate 1,000 gold dragons through any legal or illegal means.
Reward: 5 Points, 3 Attribute Points, 3 Skill Points.
[Accept] [Replace]
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Ian stared blankly. His fingers clenched at his sides.
One thousand gold dragons. The system had taken the already absurd bounty of 100 dragons and multiplied it tenfold.
No restrictions. No guidelines. Just—get the money.
Sure, there was freedom in that. He could trade, fight, smuggle, gamble, extort, or maybe even marry into wealth. But it didn't matter. The number was still insane.
In A Storm of Swords, during the chaos of the War of the Five Kings, Lady Catelyn Stark secretly released Ser Jaime Lannister—a prisoner of war and the crown's most valuable asset—in a desperate effort to negotiate peace. This caused an uproar in the North and among the Riverlords. Furious at the betrayal, Hoster Tully's heir, Edmure, and his bannermen placed a 1,000-gold-dragon bounty on Jaime's head.
That was the highest bounty ever publicly offered in the known lore of A Song of Ice and Fire.
And what did that say about the number Ian was now facing?
Jaime Lannister wasn't just anyone. He was the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, known across the Seven Kingdoms as one of the finest swordsmen alive, heir to Casterly Rock, brother to Queen Cersei, and unofficially the biological father of King Joffrey.
And even he was only worth 1,000 gold dragons.
Some might scoff, thinking the currency was inflated especially after seeing King Robert Baratheon casually offer a 40,000 gold dragon purse for a grand melee in King's Landing in A Game of Thrones. But that discrepancy was likely an oversight from George R.R. Martin's early writing.
Later, when Littlefinger discussed the cost of hiring the entire City Watch, he pegged the number at around 6,000 gold dragons. Eddard Stark, then Hand of the King, didn't blink he found the number reasonable.
Which meant, functionally, 1,000 gold dragons was equivalent to buying one-sixth of the military force guarding the capital of Westeros.
Now the system was telling Ian to raise that sum—alone.
"With what?" he muttered, exasperated. "A deck of playing cards and a toothpick?"
Suddenly, a terrible realization dawned on him.
"What if these quests… aren't meant to be completed at all?" Ian whispered.
The system didn't feel balanced. These weren't tutorial missions. There were no 'kill five rats' or 'fetch three apples' tasks here. Every mission thus far was a trap cloaked in opportunity a challenge designed to overwhelm or crush the early players.
It was survival of the fittest, sure but also death by overreach.
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Note: In the currency system of the World of Ice and Fire, 1 gold dragon = 30 silver moons = 210 silver stags.
1 silver stag = 49 copper stars.
1 copper star = 8 copper pennies.
For flavor: the average gold dragon coin is estimated in this text to weigh 7.56 grams, consistent with real-world gold coins.
(This data is used purely for the logic of this novel and its economy not intended as an exact canonical value. Do not cross-reference real gold prices or medieval conversion rates.)