Chapter 93 Dragon Island Planning
The newly appointed acting lord of Dragonstone, Earl Gunther, presided over the opening of the Dragonstone port today. He spent a day guarding the town guard with two teams of Unsullied assigned to him by the king. He had nothing to do the whole day until the evening when the town guard began to enforce a soft curfew, and he returned to the castle with his team.

Count Gunther walked straight into the main hall of the castle, and was stopped by the captain of the King's Unsullied Guard on the middle floor of the corridor leading to the Table Hall. The captain sent someone upstairs, and soon the King's only maid Missandei appeared at the stairs: "Hello, Lord Gunther."

Count Gunther was already familiar with the procedure: "I would like to see His Majesty the King."

Missandei replied, "Your Majesty is not here. Only the Princess Regent is upstairs."

Count Gunther was speechless for a moment, and after a pause, he asked, "When will His Majesty the King return?"

Missandei replied, "I am sorry, my lord, but I have no knowledge of the king's itinerary."

Daenerys' voice came from upstairs: "Who's here?"

Count Gunther was helpless. It was too late to leave, so he could only say, "Then please inform Her Royal Highness the Princess Regent that Gunther Sanglas wants to see you."

Soon, Missandei, who had come upstairs to report, led the reserved Count Gunther to the drawing room.

Princess Daenerys, the regent appointed by the king, was wearing a neat purple robe and sitting in the main seat of the drawing table hall, reading some document in the bright candlelight.

Count Gunther asked the same question: "Your Highness, when will the King return?"

Daenerys looked up, her face serious. "Perhaps tonight, maybe tomorrow morning. My brother is training his dragons, and you know how important dragons are to us right now."

As she was speaking, a roar came from the inner room of this floor, and a young dragon spread its wings, flew in front of Daenerys, landed on the table, and stared at Earl Gunther.

Earl Gunther shifted his gaze to the young dragon, then glanced at the maid Missandei who was sitting at the foot of the stairs with a small table behind her, writing something, and finally spoke out his advice to the king: "Your Highness, please tell His Majesty. Although it is now confirmed that Stannis's defeated army has gone south to Storm's End, and Dragonstone is temporarily safe, the false King Joffrey of King's Landing now has the support of the Lannister and Tyrell families. Dragonstone is not far from King's Landing. If they organize an army to attack, we have to be on guard. I implore His Majesty to make a decision as soon as possible and have the maester send a raven to send a letter outside Dragonstone, declaring the legitimate king to the nobles of Westeros and summoning loyalists from all over the country."

"Lord Gunther, I will tell my brother for you." Daenerys answered seriously, "However, my brother told me that how we govern Dragonstone will be how we govern Westeros in the future. He wants to try to govern Dragonstone first. What do you think?"

"Your Highness, there are many wars in Westeros right now. Even if Your Majesty wants to govern Dragonstone Island quietly, how can the false kings allow Your Majesty to live in peace? As for governing the country, my ability is limited and I dare not speak rashly. However, Your Majesty has this heart, which means he already has the qualities that a good king should have. Once you recover the country and employ talented people, you will definitely be a wise king."

"Well," Daenerys smiled, "I will tell the king for you."

"Then allow me to take my leave, Your Highness."

After Count Gunther left.

Daenerys looked at Missandei, who nodded to her, then took a pen and paper and went downstairs to her maid's room on the second floor.

Daenerys continued to look at the document in her hand, which was the next issues and plans that Viserys dictated and she wrote down.

Now, among the subordinate vassals of Dragonstone, only the Earl of Fawn Haven and the six-year-old acting castellan of Fawn Haven have signed up, and Viserys plans to send Earl Gunther with a fleet - a ship and three captured Lys warships - to try to bring the remaining few under his command. The process of capturing the Lys warships is not worth mentioning. It is to send two rowing boats to the port of Fawn Haven at night. The pirates had no time to react and were defeated in one blow. They surrendered and were imprisoned in Fawn Haven.

But in fact, apart from Earl Gunther who is in charge of Braemar Harbor, Earl Horn is said to have been taken to Storm's End by Stannis - the one in charge now is the Earl's mother, who is said to be a strong woman.

The life and death of Lord Adrian Celtigar of Crab Island is unknown, and the same is true for Lord Montford Velaryon of Tidefoot - the news of the dead and surrenders at the gates of King's Landing has not yet arrived from King's Landing, so they may have concerns.

But even if they sincerely pledged their allegiance, nothing would change. Now there were only the elderly, the weak, women and children left in these families, and they had no ships or troops to provide to their feudal lords. They could only provide spiritual support and part of the taxes to King Viserys.

Dragonstone and these vassals are said to be the lords of the Narrow Sea, but in reality, let's just say the core Dragonstone is now a town-level village unit, and the four vassals can only be considered village-level. After he regains them, Viserys' title of king can barely be considered the mayor of several villages under his jurisdiction.

The only things you need to care about when ruling Dragonstone are ports, commerce, taxes, and the army.

Viserys planned to wait until Earl Gunther brought his fleet to recapture the four vassal families, and then have Grolet fulfill Viserys's agreement with the sailors who had followed him across half the world, send the sailors who still wanted to go home back to Pentos, and settle various accounts and return Illyrio's goods.

Of course, the most important thing is to take over Viserys's "Finance Minister" Illyrio and assign him tasks.

Although it is difficult to say what the intentions of this "Finance Minister" are, Viserys still has to do what he promised. He does not want to be an oath breaker, and with his current strength, he does not care what Illyrio does.

The relationship between the monarch and his subjects of "I will not let you down if you don't let me down" can still be maintained.

Viserys still counts on his "Chancellor of the Exchequer" to help him get out of trouble.

Dragonstone was taken back from Stannis, and Stannis spent all the wealth accumulated on Dragonstone in order to attack King's Landing. What Viserys received from him was Dragonstone, where almost all the wealth was exchanged for supplies, ships, and troops, both of which were later buried in Blackwater Bay. Only supplies such as armor, weapons, and military rations were barely captured.

There was no money in the Dragonstone treasury right now, not to mention building a new fleet, it was hard to even build a warship. It was only enough to pay the salaries of the existing army and the castle and town maintenance personnel, or occasionally reward them.

And now Viserys's fleet was so shabby, with two galleys, three Lys warships, and a big-bellied merchant ship that had no oars to power it and could only sail with the wind.

Viserys needed funds to at least build a fleet that could help him block the Throat.

Moreover, he still has debts to Myr and Tyrosh, so it is inevitable that his "chancellor of finance" will come to him to borrow from Peter to pay Paul.

In fact, Daenerys, the "Princess Regent", actually has nothing to do. All town affairs are managed by the acting city lord, and the acting city lord, Earl Gunther, actually does nothing all day long. The only busy people in the castle are the tax officers and the financial officers. Viserys asks them to submit the accounts they sort out every day to Daenerys, and in the end, Viserys just takes a glance or two at them, and then Daenerys signs on his behalf.

However, despite this small matter, Viserys still set up a new department specifically for finance, called the Ministry of Finance, and a Pentos man who was the financial steward of the Cedurian was temporarily in charge of the department. The responsibilities of this department are to sort out the accounts, establish functions, and lay a good foundation for the work of the "Finance Minister" who has not yet taken office.

At present, the main work of this department is to formulate complete and clear rules with reference to the original financial and taxation policies of the seven countries, record all financial revenues and expenditures, manage the existing financial affairs officials, and establish a special archive to collect records of financial related affairs. The king has recruited many officials to do these things, and has also specially assigned a person who is familiar with the laws of the seven countries to list out the financial and tax related parts of the laws.

When the King established the department, he emphasized that he was doing this because his position as Chancellor of the Exchequer had already been promised to someone who was not from the Seven Kingdoms, and this was done so that when he took office in the future he could take over the work as quickly as possible.

Apart from this, there is Missandei, the only maid of the king and the princess. The king asked her, who can read and write, to record and organize the conversations between the ministers and the king/regent princess in the regular meetings of the ministers, in a format called "meeting minutes". The king occasionally guides her on how to improve when reading these, which content to write in detail, which content to abbreviate, and which content to leave out. The king wanted to hand this matter over to the young Maester Pylos, who is quite receptive to new things. He was originally sent by the Citadel to serve Dragonstone. After Dragonstone changed its owner, he became a maester serving Viserys.

In theory, no maester has any political affiliation. After completing their studies, the maester will be sent to a castle or other residence and serve the master there as a mentor, healer, and advisor. If the control of the residence changes, the maester should pledge allegiance to the new master.

But the young scholar had a lot to do, and the seriously injured still needed his daily care. In order to retrieve the ravens, the scholar had to try to go outside the castle in his spare time and use the caged ravens to call the ravens that were afraid to fly back to the castle back to their nests. These ravens needed to be trained again so that they could get used to the existence of dragons like their ancestors a hundred years ago.

As for what the king is doing.

Viserys was frantically digesting the cursed dragonbinder magic in his body.

He was now near the active crater in the center of Dragonstone.

Dragon Mountain on Dragonstone Island is an active volcano, and the castle and town of Dragonstone Island are built on the front of Dragon Mountain. The lower part of this side is relatively flat, while the upper part rises from the ground and is extremely steep. The top of the mountain is the highest peak of Dragon Mountain. The high ridge is like a huge barrier protecting the front of Dragon Mountain. Even if the volcano is active, as long as it is not violent enough, the volcanic ash from the eruption will not be thrown here.

Moreover, this volcano is a relatively mild active volcano. There is almost no record of eruptions in the Targaryen Dynasty for more than 300 years. Viserys discovered a few days ago that there are many geothermal vents near the crater, and steam generated by volcanic activity continues to rise from the geothermal vents.

Through the pale and gray steam from the geothermal vents, you can see exposed magma pools and black-red hot lava in some places.

Viserys tried to enter a huge smoking mountain pass and ventured into a volcano covered with lava and magma pools. As the temperature of the environment rose, his nose was filled with the pungent smell of sulfur. After his body swelled, the magic power in his body became abnormally active, and the speed of absorbing the magic power of the Dragon Binder attached to his body also increased.

Now all the magic power in his body is of the fire element, which is not surprising.

Fire dragons like to live in hot volcanoes. This environment, which is difficult for humans to survive in, is very suitable for dragons to circulate their magic power.

But when they really arrived at the volcano, whether it was the external geothermal vents and exposed lava pools, or venturing into the huge volcanic caves, they found that the area of ​​the Dragonstone volcano was much larger than Viserys had imagined.

However, it is not difficult to understand. There used to be many wild dragons living in this area, and the dragons in the world of ice and fire are usually very huge.

Today was the first time Viserys had tried to rest near the crater. He had to be on guard against Stannis before, so he didn't want to over-consume his magic.

Because while digesting the magic power of the Dragonbinder Horn, the magic power in his body will also be consumed, and according to the principle of the water tank inlet and outlet, it is actually a negative profit. In other words, when the magic tank on his body is digesting the Dragonbinder Horn and slowly getting bigger, the water in the tank is actually decreasing, and when he is working at full speed to digest it, the water in the magic tank will be far slower than the water out.

Therefore, before Viserys had digested the magic of the Dragonbinder to a certain extent, he had no intention of taking the risk to go to the dangerous volcanic areas to look for the habitats or nests where wild dragons or homing dragons of the Targaryen family might have once lived.

Those easily discovered skeletons and dragon egg sites have usually been collected. The value of dragon bones and dragon eggs is obvious. After the Dance of the Dragons in the Targaryen Dynasty, many dragon species ventured here to collect dragon eggs to hatch dragons and to search for possible wild dragons. There were also dragon bone poachers who tried to make a fortune by following the trail.

On the sparsely populated eastern slope of Longshan, one can easily see many incomplete traces and remains left by humans.

It would take Viserys some time to search for the hidden dragon's lair in the huge Dragon Mountain volcano and look for the possible dragon bones and eggs left behind.

In fact, Viserys planned to try to take Daenerys to explore the volcanic area of ​​Dragon Mountain once he was able to slow down and digest the magic of Dragonbinder.

It was Daenerys who saw the dragon's horn at first sight on the pirate ship Silence, and she may have a secret magical connection with the magical dragon eggs.

Perhaps it was because Viserys had relied on the magic from another world to grind away the Targaryen bloodline in him, so he did not possess the talent of Daenerys.

However, taking Daenerys into the volcano still requires careful planning, even though she is now in a very difficult physical condition to be defined as a mortal. Daenerys' soul is wrapped in the magic of the blazing fire, and her body is more heat-resistant than before.

Daenerys has actually become an extraordinary existence in this world.

By midnight, Viserys, who was working at full speed to digest the magic of the Dragonbinder, finally consumed about 70% of his existing magic power and shrank his body to fly back to the castle. At this speed, he estimated that if he did it three or four more times, he would be able to completely get rid of the curse-like magic of the Dragonbinder.

Ever since he came into contact with the Dragonbinder, the magic power in his body has never been fully replenished. However, digesting this type of magic is not a thankless task. Although this kind of magic digestion is not as fast as swallowing the magic from another world in a dream, Viserys can clearly feel that there is some strange change between the magic he digested in this way and the magic from another world in his body. He vaguely feels that this is some kind of opportunity to become a "real dragon", but the quantitative change of magic power has not yet led to a qualitative change.

After returning to the castle, Daenerys told Viserys of Lord Gunther's loyal advice that evening.

If the goal is to dominate Westeros and quickly unify the world, Earl Gunther's advice is very pertinent, but from his own perspective, solid personal strength is the foundation for Viserys to establish himself in this world where true gods exist.

"By the way, I just saw that those two Braavos merchant ships haven't left." Viserys was talking about the merchant ships that were stranded at the blockade of Dragonstone port. They entered the port of Dragonstone earlier than Viserys. Viserys suspected that they had bad intentions and had not allowed them to leave after the blockade. As a result, when the port was unblocked today, he still saw the two ships staying at the port.

"What is it?" Daenerys asked.

"They may be from the Iron Bank. No problem. I will consider these troubles after my finance minister arrives." Viserys skipped the topic and asked, "By the way, how many ravens have flown back? Can they be sent to various places in Westeros?"

The messenger raven is a smart animal that is trained to deliver messages. The reason why it can deliver messages is that most messenger ravens are trained to fly to a specific castle. Some are trained to fly between two castles, and such ravens are usually very rare. However, if a lot of effort is put in, a raven can learn the names of three, four, or even five castles and fly to any of them on command. But such smart birds are usually only seen once in a hundred years.

Not all the ravens that flew that day were flying to the destinations they were trained to deliver messages to, as the maester only planned to deliver messages to the nearest castles. When the ravens are not carrying any messages, they will follow their strong instinct to return to their nests.

But because of their intelligence, they dared not return to their nests easily after being scared away by the dragon, and only wandered around Dragonstone. For this reason, the maester had to go to the open space outside the castle to try calling, and it was said that this was very effective, and many ravens had been taken back to the cage.

In the past few days, many of the ravens that Stannis had sent to various castles have returned to their nests. In fact, it was because the maester discovered that the ravens that flew back from other places returned to their nests normally that he began to try to go outside the castle to pick up those that were scared away in the castle.

Daenerys answered him, "Maester Pylos said that most of the ravens have returned, so it should be soon." At the same time, she asked curiously, "Can we prepare the letter to be sent first? What do you plan to write on it?"

Viserys said excitedly: "I plan to send a letter to all parts of Westeros, saying: 'The white crows of the Citadel have arrived, marking the end of the long summer and the approach of winter. Viserys Targaryen, the dragon lord of Dragonstone, calls on all forces in Westeros to remain calm and restrained, and work together to maintain peace, so as to preserve the last opportunity for crop harvest before winter, and make full preparations for the people of Westeros to survive the harsh winter.'"

Daenerys' eyes widened upon hearing this.

Longshan is roughly based on the volcano in the mythical beast Palu


(End of this chapter)

Tap the screen to use advanced tools Tip: You can use left and right keyboard keys to browse between chapters.

You'll Also Like