That was an engrossing suspenseful chapter. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thank you! I figured we needed a little background for Geralt before we get into his adventures in Tamriel. Also, I fancied another game of Witcher. So here it comes.

I played Witcher I & II so I Know a little bit about it. I did enjoy both games.

12 First Seed, 4E195 - Flotsam (again)

"Come on, jump!" A voice jerked Geralt out of his slumber. He never liked boats - they made him queezy, and they'd been sailing on this one for several days already. Why did it move so slowly? But it seemed they finally arrived somewhere. Any land was going to be better than this. "Come on!" The voice was urging him on. "The witcher's ass is going to get wet!"

"I'm getting too old for this," Geralt muttered, getting up. He wasn't sure how old he was exactly - he couldn't remember it, and his friends couldn't agree whether he was just turning sixty or already pushing hundred. He certainly felt like the latter. "All right, all right, coming!" He shouted back. "Where are you, anyway?"

Vernon and Triss were waiting on the shore. The boat - or was it a ship? - was too large to come close, and the river had shallow shores, so yes, there was no way around it - he was going to get wet. "Soggy boots and soggy leathers yet again," he cursed under his breath, wading to the shore.

"This is Flotsam," Vernon made sure that Geralt was following.

"What? Where..? No! Not again!!" Wading through water was bad enough, but wading through water with flotsam was something that Geralt hated with a vengeance. He didn't need to remember that, he felt it from within.

"Not that, the water is fairly clean," Vernon laughed. "This charming town is called Flotsam. Just beyond that bend." He pointed at a path running along the shore and set off.

"I don't like this," Geralt squinted at the high cliffs along the path.

...

"Vernon Roche!" An arresting voice came from above. "I scour the land for you, and here you are walking onto my turf!" An elf with a dirty bandana covering half of his scarred face appeared on a cliff ahead.

"You are aiding the kingslayer, Iorveth!" Vernon was as enraged as the elf. "I've seen your boats waiting under the walls of the castle!"

"A crowned dh'oine is still a dh'oine," Iorveth spat.

"We're here for the kingslayer, we have no quarrel with you," Geralt joined in, although he didn't think it would make any difference. The stand-off between Iorveth's elves and Vernon Roche's Special Forces was an old and hot one. Iorveth bared his teeth like a cornered wolf, raised his hand, and a dozen arrows were silently released at the three travellers below.

"You bastard!!!" None of them carried a shield.

"No, you don't!!" In a blink of an eye Triss built a sphere of flames around them. The arrows were deflected, for now. Triss collapsed to the ground.

"Whaa--??" Geralt was spinning in place. Was Triss dead? It didn't seem so, her protective sphere still held. Just fainted. Vernon drew his sword - the elves were coming for them on foot, as the sphere couldn't stop people. Geralt drew his sword too - but what about Triss?

"I am not dead," a remarkably lively voice said from the ground. "But I can't walk. One of you must carry me to Flotsam, the sphere will follow."

"All right." Vernon sheathed his sword, picked up Triss and started walking. "You deal with the elves, Geralt."

"Get your hand off my ass!"

"Shush!"

As they rounded the bend and looked back, a muscular figure of the kingslayer appeared next to Iorveth.

"Do you know this witcher?" Ioverth asked, not taking his eyes off Geralt.

"Oh yes, I know Geralt, but he doesn't remember," the kingslayer nodded with a sigh. "I know Geralt." He paused. "I know his weakness."

...

"Come on, we don't want to miss the hanging!" People were rushing towards the town square - there wasn't much entertainment to be had in Flotsam.

"Who's being strung?" Geralt asked.

"Oh, a couple of thieves, a dwarf and a dandy like," a woman laughed, rushing past him.

"Geralt!!! Help!!!" A very urgent voice was coming from the gallows.

"Dandelion!"

Dandelion and Zoltan Chivay stood on the gallows with nooses around their necks, right next to two thieves that the woman mentioned. A dandy of a bard and a dwarf craftsman... both Geralt's friends. This had to be a mistake!

...

"Phew, that was too close!" Zoltan was massaging his neck after Geralt and Vernon between them managed to "talk" the guards into seeing sense. Two thieves had to be enough for the crowd's entertainment. "Tavern! I need a stiff drink." Zoltan turned towards the tavern, with the rest of them following - it was high time to catch up.

"Well, watch where y're going!" A shrill female voice rang in Geralt's ear. So shrill, that even Geralt's amulet started buzzing - a witcher's amulet enchanted to warn of magic or danger, for often they were one and the same. "Keep your swords to yourself, you..!" The woman suddenly stopped yelling. "Pardon me, Master Witcher," she continued in the sweetest of voices. "But would you be so kind as to assist me with, ah, a delicate matter? After hours? I am the healer here, my practice is in that house just across the square. Please come and see me after dark."

Geralt nodded, she smiled and walked off.

"I wouldn't mind a bite of that ass myself, but she's not that kind of a healer," a rough yet educated voice said in Geralt's ear. "Come and see me after dark, we have matters to discuss."

That was the mayor of Flotsam, and he wasn't taking "no" for an answer.

The town square suddenly fell quiet, with everyone returning to their chores. The sun was still high on the horizon, the pigs had resumed rolling in the mud and the crows started assembling by the gallows. Geralt stood in the middle of Flotsam, deciding what to do next. For a sleepy provincial town, Flotsam appeared to pack a punch.

Strangely, he did not feel like going to the tavern to catch up. His friends would still be there later. Triss didn't seem the worse for wear - "Sorceresses!" - he smirked; you never quite knew where you stood with them. This was undoubtedly a shady town and he just got himself into a load of shady business, he thought. After dark! What was he supposed to do till then?

...

"Well, well, well, look who's here," a voice said in his ear as a bulky half-naked fellow appeared from a doorway blocking his way, his fists clad in heavy steel gauntlets. "You're worth more to me alive, but I'll settle for your corpse if I have to, kingslayer," he smirked. "There's good coin in that."

"Oh let's get it over with!" Geralt drew his sword. A leisurely stroll through town might not have been the best way to while away an afternoon in Flotsam, after all.

...

"Now I'll need a healer," Geralt spat out a tooth. The six fellows that ambushed him were no weaklings. "Kingslayer," he shook his head. "Of course. There's a price on my head. I should be more careful. Now, where did she say she lived?" He returned to the town square looking for the healer's house, as the sun finally set.

...

"Geralt of Rivia, at your service," he greeted the young woman as she answered the door. "You said you needed assistance."

"Indeed," she smiled. "Please come in. We don't want interruptions," she added, throwing on the bolt. Geralt's amulet started buzzing again. Magic or danger? Or both?

...

"Where is Geralt?" Dandelion was getting impatient to embrace his friend who, for some reason, did not follow them into the tavern. "It's nearly dark already!" He hiccupped and called for another mug of ale. "Oh look - there he is! Hey..!" But Geralt walked right past the tavern and knocked on the door of the house across the square.

"Healer," Zoltan followed Dandelion's glance out of the window. "He looks pretty beat up too."

"Well, I could have healed him!" Triss watched him enter the house, saw a young woman's face behind the door, and didn't like any of it.

"When was the last time you actually brew an ointment for him, Sorceress?" Vernon squinted.

"Lena Wolf is a decent healer," Zoltan concluded the conversation. "I go to her every time I need my head cleared after a night of drinking - her stuff works! Nothing wrong with that."

"And by the looks of things we'll all be needing those potions tomorrow," Dandelion added as the waitress delivered another round of drinks.

...

"I am Lena Wolf," the young woman introduced herself when Geralt entered her shop. "A healer. I brew potions and know some spells. You need healing."

"And I am a witcher," Geralt smirked. "I heal myself. This will pass, it isn't the first time. What did you want to talk about?"

That didn't start well. They stood facing each other, their eyes locked, their wills also.

"Very well, we'll return to this later," Lena looked away and smiled. The most radiant smile you could ever imagine. Geralt shook his head - was he being charmed? "Your other name is 'The White Wolf', is it not?" He nodded. She nodded too, as if consulting with herself, then pulled a medallion from under her clothing. A wolf amulet. A witcher's amulet just like Geralt's, and it was buzzing in her hand. "Does yours buzz as well?"

"Where did you get this?" That was all that Geralt could think of. Witcher's amulets were rare but not impossible to find, but they would never - never! - respond to anyone besides the person for whom they were enchanted. "You are not a witcher!"

"No," Lena shook her head. "This was given to me..." She started, then interrupted herself: "But please, let's sit down. This will be a long night."

...

Lena and Geralt talked for hours. She told Geralt about an old witcher who came to her shop some months ago looking for herbs. His wounds were severe and she convinced him to stay in her little clinic for a few days. Days turned into weeks, and despite all their combined best efforts, the witcher succumbed to his wounds. When he could no longer get up, he gave her his amulet and said to always wear it and to look out for a white wolf with the same sort of trinket - that wolf would make her complete.

"I didn't take his words seriously, you see," Lena smiled with sadness. "I thought he was delirious. He was on his deathbed, after all," she sighed. "But I took the medallion in his memory and wore it ever since. It never buzzed before." She raised her eyes to Geralt's, smiled and opened another bottle of Cyrodilic Brandy.

"Why is your name 'Wolf'?" Geralt was puzzled too.

"My father's name, I believe," Lena blushed a little. "I have not known him. My mother died when I was four, and my adoptive grandmother - when I was sixteen. She said I was named after my father, she knew who he was but could not tell..." Lena took a sip of her drink. "All in all, I know about as little of my parents as you of yours."

"But I know nothing of them!" Geralt protested. "I was given to the Witcher School of the Wolf at a very young age. This damned amnesia... But even without it, no one seems to know a thing. Give me your amulet," he stretched out his hand. As Lena passed the amulet, it kept buzzing in Geralt's hand. As did his in hers.

"Well?" She looked at him expectantly.

"It must be..." Geralt's brow furrowed. "What else could it be..?" He paused, then said decisively: "You are my sister."

12 First Seed, 4E195 - Siblings

"How old are you?" Geralt squinted at Lena, taking in her appearance. "You look... twenty. But you are not."

"Perceptive," Lena smiled. "I've lived some hundred twenty to two hundred years."

"You don't know?"

"It depends whom you ask," Lena shrugged. "Time passes differently in other Realms."

Lena already told Geralt about Tamriel and how she boarded the biggest ship in Anvil that was bound to the Realms Beyond the Great Maelstrom. They docked in Novigrad and from there Lena made her way to Flotsam, not specifically having it as a goal but simply looking for a town that wouldn't be questioning her accent twenty times a day. Flotsam was a port on a river that crossed many kingdoms, it changed hands so often, that people got confused who the current king was. As such it belonged to itself first and foremost, a place where everyone was from somewhere else. Lena fitted right in.

"All right," Geralt tried to make sense of things. "So we can't compare calendars. But if you are my sister, are you younger or older? And by how much?"

"Younger. By just a few years," Lena said with conviction. "Mum died when I was four, remember? And grandma said..." she hesitated. She couldn't quite remember what her grandmother had said about her parents, but decided to go with it anyway. "Well, I don't know exactly. But I think it's just a few years."

"Fine." Geralt decided to accept it. "Are you a sorceress? How come you are still alive? And why do you look so young?" He squinted at her.

"Not a sorceress," Lena shook her head. "Well, I'm a mage, that is, I know some magic, but nothing like the sorceresses here. More like a hedge witch," she giggled.

"So?" Geralt wasn't going to let it slide.

"Well... err... I'm still alive because..." This was going to be painful. "I used to be a vampire."

"WHAT?!" Geralt looked up, puzzled, and Lena was suprised at that. He wasn't shocked or revolted, just puzzled. "Vampires are beings from another Realm. They are what they are, they cannot stop being vampires and change into something else. There's no 'used to be a vampire'." Geralt shook his head.

"Umm..." Lena was puzzled too. "No... Vampirism is a disease... No, wait. It's not the same thing," she brightened up. "In Tamriel vampirism is a disease, all humans, elves, beastfolk, even most animals can catch it. It makes you undead... There is usually no cure."

"But you got cured."

"Yes," she nodded. "It was hard to obtain. May not have worked fully either..." She looked sideways. "Sometimes I feel..." She paled. "But no, I am NOT a vampire. Not any more," she said defiantly. "I do NOT require blood."

...

The discovery that he had a sister was a bit of a shock for Geralt. He didn't know anything about his parents, true, and therefore it was not inconcievable that he could have a sibling; but now that it appeared he had one, he struggled to assimilate this news. The woman before him was his younger sister, he was her big brother, what did it mean? What was he supposed to do? What would she expect him to do? Why did she have to be so pretty? (That thought made him shake his head violently.) It was much easier with Ciri - his adoptive daughter. She was but a child. He simply assumed responsibility and tried to help her grow up as best he could. But a sister was an entirely different matter.

"I don't know what to do with it," he finally said. "What do you expect me to do?"

"Nothing," Lena smiled. "No - wait." She got up and brought a jar of ointment. "Take off your shirt - you are bleeding."

...

The dawn was already breaking when Lena declared that it was time for bed. Lavander oil in the burner did the trick and Geralt allowed her to make him sleep in her clinic. The number of revelations that descended upon them during that night was nearing the number of empty bottles of brandy under the table, and it became obvious that neither of them was in any shape to face the shining rays of day. Lena's practice stayed closed.

"He stayed there all night!" Triss was fuming, looking at Lena's door. Vernon smirked and walked off to nurse his own hangover.

...

When Geralt eventually left Lena's house, the sun was already setting again. Wasn't there something he had to do after dark? He struggled to remember. Oh yes, visit the mayor. Well, that could certainly wait, so he went to the tavern instead. Dandelion and Zoltan were still there, having spent the last twenty four hours drinking, it seemed.

"A day late, but there he is at last!" Dandelion jumped up to greet Geralt and miraculously managed not to fall over.

"Getting into fights and beds as usual, I see," Zoltan patted Geralt on the back. "Barman! Vodka!"

"No, no vodka," Geralt shook his head a bit too violently and winced. "I'll tell you later."

Triss had just walked in, and for some reason Geralt didn't want to talk about the big discovery of last night in front of her. Not just yet, anyway.

"Ah, there you are," Triss said coldly, joining them at the table. "What's the matter? Your head hurts?"

"Lay off him, Triss," Zoltan shot her an angry glance. He didn't dislike her, but sometimes she did get on his nerves. "So what's that with the king's murder that I hear?" He turned to Geralt, changing the topic.

...

"Save yourselves! The beast attacks the harbour!" Someone rushed in, for where better to hide from a dangerous beast than in a tavern.

"Someone is casting spells," Triss seemed to be sniffing the air. "Let's go see."

The harbour was just outside the door, and the air was charged with lightning. A giant tenticle shot out of the water and slapped across the pier knocking out one of the fishermen. A powerful lightning bolt coming from nowhere shot at the tentacle making it retreat. No, not from nowhere - an elegantly dressed sorceress came forward from the mist, the air still buzzing with discharges around her.

"Sile de Tansarville," if Triss' tone had been cold at the tavern, it was now glacial. "Here to hunt some rare ingredients?"

"Triss Merigold, sharp as ever," Sile replied coolly. "Indeed. Toad's gallbladders, chicken livers and virgin blood - all the things we love to throw into a cauldron come Sabbath."

"Virgins are a dying breed indeed," Triss glared. What was all that about?

"Well, aren't you going to introduce me?" Sila smiled at Geralt.

Triss rolled her eyes.

"Sile de Tansarville, adviser to the Queen of Kovir," she said. "Here to hunt the river beast, I presume."

"And I suppose we know each other?" Geralt was searching Sile's face hoping it would jog his memory. It didn't.

"Yes," Sile nodded. "But let's just say, I've heard of you."

"Aha," Geralt gave her a long look. What kind of a history did he have with the woman? But neither she nor Triss wanted to bring it up, so Geralt had to settle on treating Sile as a new acquaintance.

"I am here to hunt the river beast, as you say. I already got the contract." She got down to business. "And I'm not sharing the reward. You'll have to negotiate your own payment if you want to join in. Some of the merchants here should be willing to splash out, seeing how the beast is blocking the river and preventing them from moving on." She paused watching Geralt's reaction, then smiled noting relief. Geralt was all too glad to just stick to the matter at hand. "I am staying at the tavern, upstairs. Find me when you're ready."

"The tavern is also a brothel, you know that, right?" Triss put in with a snigger.

"Well, thank you for the warning," Sile answered politely, said gooodbye to Geralt and walked off. The tavern was the only inn in town anyway.

"Don't go with Sile," Triss turned to Geralt. "I don't trust her."

"Is that why you went all pale when you saw her?" Geralt squinted at Triss.

"Oh, that was just..." she paused searchingly. "I'm just still a little weak from casting that shielding sphere the day before. I don't jump into the first bed I see in a new place!" She glared.

"What..?" Geralt was confused - he hadn't even been to the brothel yet! "Oh..." Lena. Of course Triss was talking about that. "Never mind that now," he cut off. While Triss' jealousy was flattering, it was also annoying. "I better go ask around about that beast. I hear there's a ship wreck nearby that might have been its victim. And other things too," Geralt hoped it was enough.

"I'll come with you," Triss smiled pleasantly.

Triss' idea of accompanying Geralt did not actually involve walking. She opened a portal and teleported straight to the ship wreck leaving Geralt to make his way there on foot and deal with monsters and bandits along the way. Geralt didn't mind - he hated teleports.

At the scene of the ship wreck they found some deliciously decomposed mucus of the river beast, along with a group of drowners, as was to be expected. These bloated bodies of drowned people were a particularly nasty variety of zombies, and like all zombies, they were strong, toxic and hard to kill.

"Ugh, I don't know what I like less - drowners or river beasts," Geralt was muttering under his breath trying not to inhale as he was splitting the drowners' skulls open and removing their watery brains. As unpleasant as it was to perform this surgery, he was not about to forgo collecting ingredients. In the meantime Triss examined the mucus of the river beast.

"The beast is ill - it is dying," she declared.

"How soon?"

"Soon! A couple of years, no more!" She looked pleased with herself.

"Not soon enough!" Geralt swore.

"And it is therefore exceptionally toxic at present," Triss continued radiantly. "A single drop of its mucus would kill you outright!" She concluded triumphantly.

"Err..."

"So leave this to Sile."

Ah. He should have known. It was, then, about Sile rather than the river beast. Just what sort of history did he have with that cool and composed sorceress? He wondered again, but couldn't remember, and Triss wasn't telling.

"Mongoose," Geralt turned to Triss. "Perfect poison resistance - you know the potion. I'll use that."

"Well, if you must," Triss sighed, giving up. "I know you can't resist going after this beast, but for gods' sake, don't go with Sile!"

And with that she turned around and stepped into a portal, leaving Geralt to finish off a few drowners and do the right thing and not go with Sile. Of course by that point Geralt made up his mind to the opposite.

...

All this running around took another day, and it was once again nearing sunset. Geralt needed an uncommon herb for the Mongoose potion, a herb that could only be found in dump gloomy caves usually infested with monsters. That would normally not be a problem, but he felt tired from everything happening at once again and him not knowing who he was. Only having half a year worth of memories when you had supposedly lived for a century, just wasn't enough.

Ordinarily in such a situation Geralt would have gone to a brothel - that always made him feel better. But here in Flotsam he had another option, and he knocked on Lena's door. A bowl of hot stew, a delve into her memories, then restful sleep with lavander incense burning brought peace where even the best brothel would have struggled.

...

"I see you hadn't gone to Sile," Triss greeted Geralt in the morning as he was leaving Lena's practice. She finally got a grip on herself and no longer looked terse, even though she was boiling with jealousy inside. She remembered that arguing with a man was not the best way to his heart and decided to play it cool. Even though Yennefer could argue with him all day long and he would still... But no, he didn't remember, Triss smiled to herself. "Have you found that herb for the Mongoose potion?" She asked pleasantly. "Is that why you went to the healer?"

"I..." Geralt stared at her. Of course. He never even thought to ask Lena about the herb, but Triss was right - as a healer, she probably had it in stock. He turned around and went back to Lena's shop. Triss sneered and walked away. The women in Geralt's life were proving problematic.

"It depends whom you ask," Lena shrugged. "Time passes differently in other Realms."

Lena already told Geralt about Tamriel and how she boarded the biggest ship in Anvil that was bound to the Realms Beyond the Great Maelstrom. They docked in Novigrad and from there Lena made her way to Flotsam, not specifically having it as a goal but simply looking for a town that wouldn't be questioning her accent twenty times a day. Flotsam was a port on a river that crossed many kingdoms, it changed hands so often, that people got confused who the current king was. As such it belonged to itself first and foremost, a place where everyone was from somewhere else. Lena fitted right in.'

- - I very much like how you handle moving across time and worlds. I only play one character so we have to do much the same thing as she moves through the different eras of Tamriel and even to other worlds (games).

Thanks, Acadian! Time is a tricky thing, and easily distorted by things like The Great Maelstrom... whatever it is. Sounds dangerous.

Lena's still in Kvatch, that's where I'm up to anyway. Ah, she's supposed to be looking for Nocturnal's Cowl, but has gotten WAY sidetracked!

Sounds like this 'merchant' is rather shady. He tries to sell her property which isn't even there? Whoa, he claims to know all about every, uh, murder Lena has committed. Who in oblivion is this guy?

Okay cool. She's got the cowl. Very strange.



I totally look at it this way. After the OC a lot of things expand and change, etc.

That's really cool she gives the cowl back to its rightful owner. Maybe this is how the quest goes as Bethesda wrote it, I haven't a clue. Never did any of those Daedric Shrine quests, unfortunately. Either way, I'm sure Nocturnal's appreciative to have this rare unique possession back.

The 4 Bravil mods you added are more ergonomic than Better Cities (which I've got installed). Just.. tidier, from the looks of them. Alright, one more chapter. It is now Last Seed 4, Year 202.



Ha ha ha, so true. I mean, a lot of NPCs in the game go nuts when it comes to combat, but Modryn Oreyn is particularly ferocious. My elf archer had him as a follower for a while.

Wow, Recessive Vampirism by Lena Wolf! Very nice, my dear. If I ever roll another vampire I'm getting this one, for sure.

http://chorrol.com/forums/index.php?s=&...st&p=338615

The story with Nocturnal's Cowl and the contract on Corvus Umbranox are a part of my yet-to-do-properly mod on Dark Brotherhood. A remake of the second half of the DB quest line which gives you choices. If you choose not to purify the Sanctuary in Cheydinhal, you enter my alternative quest line which unmasks the traitor, cleans up the Brotherhood and promotes you to Lachance's Silencer. It then pits you against the Thieves Guild. The culmination of that is that you obtain Nocturnal's Cowl, and if you choose to return it to Nocturnal, the "Nightingales" quest line begins.

However, it is still a very big question whether I shall ever release any of it. I features Lucien Lachance quite heavily, and I have received some very unpleasant emails in real life promising me a nice hot fire down under for allegedly admiring the guy. Ugh, I don't need that kind of bother.

However, the story will be told in full as it unfolds in this thread.

Very nice, I like the sound of that. When my DB vampire did got to Purification she couldn't go through with it. No way was she going to do that to all of her guildmates; she'd become especially fond of all of them, even the rude Khajiit who often insulted her, she'd gotten to the point that she looked forward to his taunts and insults! -- She actually tried to kill Lucien instead. Found out where he'd been staying, and then tried several times to off the guy. Wasn't happening.

That was on PS3, though. So if I ever do the DB again (this time with mods) I'd look forward to whatever alternative could be. It's been my idea to try Dark Brotherhood all over again, writing it as a story here in Fan Fiction perhaps. No pressure, though. I want to finish Joan's tales first, so we're talking 2024 or 2025, since I'm such a slow gamer.

15 First Seed, 4E195 - The river beast

Sile was very professional. When Geralt went to see her at the tavern, she gave him some very precise and useful information about the river beast. She had examined the mucus previously and also concluded that the beast would die in a few years, but since the river couldn't remain blockaded for that long, she thought it irrelevant. Instead, she noted that it was vulnerable to lightening and lightening-based traps, which was one of the few spells that witchers used often. If Geralt were to practice his Yrden Sign before battle, as well as take a magicka-enhancing potion in addition to the universal antidote, he would stand the best chance of surviving that encounter.

"Oh don't worry, I won't let you die," she smiled. "I was joking. I do joke sometimes." She busied herself with the magical equipment on the table, momentarily turning away from Geralt. Was that... was she blushing?

"Sile," Geralt decided to be direct. "I don't remember what went on between us, but I can feel we have a history. Tell me, please."

"Oh..." Sile gave him a long look. "Not the same kind of history as you normally have with women," she smirked. "Our paths crossed quite a few times, which is not surprising. There are so few witchers and sorcerers around, that we all know each other, all our paths cross sooner or later." She paused, watching him, weighing what to tell him. "You..." She shook her head. No, she wouldn't tell him, not yet, anyway. "Your memory will return. How long has it been? Half a year? May be a few more months then, without help." She paused again, choosing her words carefully. "I don't know why you didn't get help. May be there was a reason."

She stopped talking - she would say no more. Geralt felt it was pointless to insist, and he rather liked her cool and aloof manner. She wasn't treating him like a child, she gave him some information expecting that he would work out the rest. So he thanked her and went to prepare for the battle with the river beast - they agreed to go the next day.

...

The battle was spectacular. They went to the spot of the ship wreck since the river ran in the shallows there and there was no danger of drowning. They dispatched the drowners easily enough, Sile's fireballs nearly incinerating them outright. Then, when the area was clear, Sile summoned the beast.

The folk in Flotsam would have you believe that it was Sile who summoned the beast into that river in the first place. But then folks didn't trust mages, always blaming them for any and all misfortunes. In truth, the beast had always lived there, as the local elves would have told you, if you had even considered talking to them. They had been watching that beast for the past five hundred years at least. It started out small, it grew larger, it almost filled the river bed, and yet there had never been any trouble. Until it got ill. And now it was in pain and it was dying, and taking it out on the rest of the world. Killing it would be a merciful thing to do, for all involved.

Sile summoned the beast with a lightning bolt, or may be she knew where the beast was lying under water and struck there. It rose from the depths and started moving towards the shore, throwing its huge tentacles covered in sticky poisonous mucus.

"Yrden, Geralt!" Sile shouted through the crackling of discharges. "Deal with the tentacles one by one!"

Geralt focused on the nearest tentacle, trying to estimate which way it was moving. Yrden was a spell that created a trap on the ground infused with lightning. The plan was to immobilise a tentacle with Yrden, then cut it off with the sword, avoiding touching the mucus. The pitfall was however that Yrden took some time to cast, and with the beast flailing its tentacles in all directions, there was no guarantee that it would actually hit the trap before it fizzled out.

"Well, best get started," Geralt muttered, casting the first trap. The beast shot its tentacle towards the ball of lightening in his hands knocking him over. "Damn!"

"Again!" Sile shouted, sending a massive bolt at the beast's head and practically freezing it for a short time. Long enough for a skilled witcher to cast another Yrden trap!

But Geralt wasn't all that skilled with Yrden, never really bothering with traps and preferring a direct approach - flames and force push was what he used most. But now he needed Yrden.

"Just like a noonwraith," he told himself, trying to steady his hand and muster his magicka. "Don't look into her eyes, she isn't a fair maiden," he smirked, suddenly recalling a rhyme from a textbook he studied so many years ago. This tiny fragment of a memory was enough to boost his magicka and complete the trap. "There!" He jumped back, readying his sword. "Come on, slapper! Over here!"

The tentacle slapped onto the shallow water with a huge splash... and got caught in the Yrden trap. The tip was still wriggling dangerously, but the middle was securely pinned to the ground.

"Quickly!" Sile shouted, preparing another bolt. "It's readying another tentacle!" The heavens seemed to have split as she cast her spell. It was deafening. The beast froze again.

It only took two swings of Geralt's sword to cut off the tentacle. The beast reeled, sending another one straight at Geralt. Geralt rolled away, avoiding the worst of it and getting thoroughly soaked through in the process - they were fighting in the shallows of the river, after all. He clenched his teeth and took a step back to choose a spot for the next Yrden trap.

...

"How many tentacles can there be!" Geralt swore after yet another tentacle was cut off, and yet another had him flat on his face in the water again.

"Eight!" Sile shouted from her position on an elevated rock tirelessly shooting lightening bolts at the head of the beast. "Six down, two to go!"

...

"Are you alright?" Geralt opened his eyes. He was lying in shallow water, his head was hurting, and a beautiful woman was kneeling over him.

"Err..." He rubbed the back of his head.

"You hit your head on a rock," the woman said. "Do you remember anything?"

"Umm..." Geralt sat up, looking around. Slimy chunks of some giant beast were covering the area. He was soaked through, stunk to high heaven, but didn't seem to have any serious wounds. His silver sword lay nearby, he picked it up, wiped it on his trousers and sheathed it. The woman wasn't rushing him. He liked that.

River beast. Sile. Battle. "There must have been a reason why you didn't get any help." "Don't look into her eyes, she isn't a fair maiden." Yes, he remembered.

"Thank you, Sile, I'm in one piece," he smiled, accepting her helping hand and her restoration magic.

"You will need some conventional healing, but this should tie you over," she nodded with satisfaction. "I am going to stay here a bit - those ingredients are best when they are fresh," she smiled. "Do you want me to open a portal to take you back to Flotsam?"

"No portals, thanks," Geralt shook his head. "Hate teleportation. Besides, I like my ingredients fresh too." He flicked a pocket knife and went about filling his pouch. The beast was large enough for both of them.

18 First Seed, 4E195 - Mirage

After the fight with the river beast, Geralt urgently needed a bath. But where would one find a bath house in a town like Flotsam? Going by the smell around most citizens, there wasn't one. So, as usual, Geralt went to the brothel.

Brothels often provided more than one service, and they certainly had bathing facilities, even if those were usually kept off-limits for customers. But Geralt had a reputation, and so he went straight to the Madam.

"Ugh, you stink!!!" She exclaimed rather sharply as soon as Geralt entered her office. "Out!!"

"Err... Do pardon me, ma'am," Geralt shuffled before the door. "It's about the stench... Would you happen to know where I can find a bath house in Flotsam?"

"There isn't one, as you well know," the Madam rolled her eyes, holding a scented handkerchief to her nose. "And this is why you came to me... Yes, your reputation precedes you," she shrugged. "Very well. But first - river! Get that stench off you, whatever it is you rolled in, I don't want to know!"

Geralt smiled, thanked her and went over to the river bank to wash off the crudest dirt. He didn't bother removing his leathers - those boots and trousers were not only soggy already, but also impregnated with the decay of the river beast, and water couldn't hurt them any longer. "All of this will need to be replaced," he shook his head noting the lack of coins in his coin pouch. "Let's hope the merchant I bargained with, will actually pay up, now that the beast is dead."

Soggy but less smelly, he returned to the brothel and found that a hot bath had already been prepared for him. It definitely paid to be on good terms with the ladies, and he never shied away from providing them with work. Although he felt that in this case the Madam had something else in mind, he pushed away that thought and focussed on enjoying the bath.

...

Geralt was relaxing in a hot water tub set in the middle of a spacious room in what cold have easily been a castle. A circular fireplace in the middle kept the room warm, while an open window let in a gentle breeze of fresh mountain air. Geralt smiled - he was home. It was Kaer Mohen, the castle occupied by the Witcher School of the Wolf where Geralt had lived all his childhood, nay, all his life. For even after he went into the world to fight monsters as a new witcher, he would always return for the winter months to heal the wounds of both body and soul.

He opened his eyes and looked around. The room was as it had always been, one of the few things that he did somehow remember, while everything else was lost. But wait - someone else was there. He tried to focus. A woman with long wavy black hair stood in a far corner of the room with her back to him. She wore travelling leathers in black and white. A faint smell of lilac and gooseberries was drifting through the air.

She raised her arms - she was conjuring a portal. "Geralt..." she said, briefly turning to look at him, then shook her locks, stepped through the portal and vanished. Geralt never saw her face, it was somehow completely blurred... What happened?

...

Geralt sat up with a jerk. Splashes of hot water went everywhere. He was still sitting in a hot tub in the brothel of Flotsam. The warmth had made him relax and fall asleep. It had been one of those dreams. "Who was that woman?" He wondered. He felt that he should have known... that she knew him, that he had to do something, find her... But he could not remember a thing.

He got out of the tub and got dressed. The Madam would undoubtedly tell him what she wanted from him in exchange for the laundry service - Geralt noticed with great pleasure that his linens and boots had been replaced by clean and dry ones. "It must be a big favour that she wants," he smirked, but didn't complain.

Entering the tavern upstairs, he saw Dandelion still drinking, or again drinking, yet not getting drunk... "He's listening in on conversations," Geralt realised. Then said aloud: "I had another one of those dreams... You know, the ones that seem like fragments of memories."

"Oh yes?" Dandelion turned to him. "What about this time?"

"A woman with long black hair, dressed in black and white, with a scent of lilac and gooseberries about her," he said, watching Dandelion's face. "Any idea who she might be? I didn't see her face."

"Oh, she is..." Dandelion smiled, preparing to tell a story, then cut himself short: "You will remember her in time, there's no need to rush."

Triss entered the room.

Geralt wasn't sure what to think, and he didn't like what he could come up with.

...

"I have a proposition for you, White Wolf," someone said softly into Geralt's ear. "Don't let me wait much longer."

It was the mayor, or the Commandant, as he liked to be called. Geralt really had to go see him, and so he went.

"It's quite simple, really," the Commandant started. "You killed the river monster for me, and I am grateful. But there are other monsters around, and you're a witcher. Take care of them... err..."

"If you are paying," Geralt smirked. "Witchers don't work for free."

"Yes, of course, there's payment..." The Commandant nodded. "Also, I did save your two friends from hanging, remember?"

"Yes..." Geralt squinted. "Where are you going with this?" After all, monster removal was his normal line of work which he would pursue without any special invitation. The Commandant had clearly something else in mind.

"You aren't here just for sightseeing, are you?" The Commandant squinted back. "What brings you to Flotsam, Geralt? Geralt the Kingslayer, I should add. I should arrest you where you stand and send you to the gallows, really."

"But you haven't done so yet, so you don't intend to either," Geralt retorted. Now they were coming to the point. "What is it that you want from me?"

"You are a capable man," the Commandant smiled. "And I have an elven problem. Rid me of the elves and I shall help you catch the real kingslayer."

"You know they call me the Butcher of Blaviken, right?" Geralt paled. "I do not kill elves."

"You killed a few on your way here."

"They attacked us."

"They were elves."

"What's your point?!" Geralt was getting impatient. "I am not going to kill every elf in Flotsam!" He was getting angry too, and it showed. The Commandant took a step back.

"I didn't mean to kill every elf in Flotsam," he shook his head, although it was clear he wouldn't have minded if Geralt had agreed to that. "I mean to kill one particular elf. The head of the militant elven group that made Flotsam forest into its headquarters. They are the ones that aided your kingslayer, and he's staying with them right now." He paused, watching Geralt calm down. Satisfied, he continued. "Iorveth. You've seen the posters around town. There's a price on his head. Only I don't believe that anyone can get to him. Anyone but you."

"I can't get to him either," Geralt sighed.

"I can help with that," the Commandant smiled slyly and Geralt looked up. "Your friend Zoltan, the dwarf, I didn't save him from hanging out of the kindness of my heart. Well, not just out of the kindness of my heart." He smirked and Geralt thought that kindness had certainly nothing to do with it. "Zoltan got his sentence for talking to Iorveth. He can lead you to him." He paused again, watching Geralt, but Geralt could not believe it. "He won't want to. He is not actually with that elf, I know that much."

"But you were still going to hang him," Geralt objected.

"Well. He broke the law, technically," the Commandant grinned. "And he's a dwarf, a non-human, not like you and me."

"I am not human either," Geralt spit, he was getting angry again. "I'm a mutant, remember?"

"Rubbish," the Commandant laughed. "You have cat's eyes and you fight like a demon, but you're human. I don't give monkeys for your mutations. You're human. You're one of us." He smiled broadly, looking very content with himself.

Geralt wasn't sure what to say to this. It was rare to be accepted among humans quite so unreservedly, and Geralt could not help but feel good at the Commandant's words and the firm tone with which he said them. On the other hand, the fact that this acceptance came from a person like the Commandant was also quite disgusting... Confused by these feelings, Geralt brushed them aside and focussed on the matter at hand.

"How is Zoltan supposed to lead me to Iorveth?" He went straight to the point.

"Oh, I don't know... He'll think of something," the Commandant shrugged. "Make him think of something. But he is your lead. Use him and get to the kingslayer, and along the way kill Iorveth for me, that's all I ask."

...

Geralt stood on the crossroads in Flotsam watching a pig roll in the dirt. He felt like he just rose from a cesspit.

"The Commandant has an elven prisoner on that barge," Triss came up to him pointing at a barge in the dock. "Word is, he's near death. We should talk to him before he expires."

"Whaa---?" Geralt spun around. Why did people have to sneak up on him from behind like that? He had heard Triss' footsteps of course, but still...

"We should go talk to the elf," Triss repeated. "The Commandant wanted you to kill Iorveth, right? Well, we should interrogate the prisoner." She said in a very business-like fashion, turned and started walking towards the barge.

"How..?" Geralt started, taking off after her. How did she know? Truth be told, it was obvious. Everyone except Geralt had figured it out already, it seemed, and Geralt had to be told by the Commandant.

...

The elf was dying. He had been in a fight and was badly wounded, he would not survive beyond a day or two. But why would he want to speak to Geralt? He didn't.

Triss cast a spell, Geralt cast another, the world spinned and the elf's pain was lifted, if only for a time.

"I am looking for the kingslayer, the witcher," Geralt started without a preamble. "He is staying with your people, with Iorveth. How can I get to him?"

"Traitor!" The elf spit. "That witcher betrayed us! That's how I got captured! He tried to kill us all! I've never seen anyone move as fast as that! He's a demon!"

"No, he's a witcher," Geralt smiled. "But why would he want to kill you all?"

"He used us to get to King Foltest, and now he no longer needs us," the elf shrugged. "Iorveth should have never trusted him! But Iorveth does not know of what happened. I alone survived that bloodbath." The elf fell back, his pain returning.

"Then tell me how to find Iorveth and I shall warn him," Geralt offered, but the elf only laughed. No, it wasn't going to be that easy.

"The witcher attacked us at the ruined elven bath," he said. "Near the ancient statue where the Roses of Remembrance grow." He paused, bracing his abdomen. "I am certain he will strike there again. You will find your kingslayer there. Iorveth must stay away..." He was growing weak. "I go to the place where the apple trees bloom eternal... but Iorveth... he must live..." The elf fell back to the floor, his life force dwindling.

"...the place where the apple trees bloom eternal..." Geralt repeated softly. "Avalon."

It was but a split second in the real world, but in that time Geralt relived years, if only in fragments. Like pieces of coloured glass falling out of a broken kaleidoscope, his memories suddenly came rushing into his mind. When he had died... when he got stabbed with a pitchfork during the fight in Blaviken, he died... then someone... a woman in black and white, with long black hair, a scent of lilac and gooseberries about her... she brought him back... at the cost of her own life. Then... a swirl, a twister picked both of them up and wisked away to another place, another time... a place outside of time. The Isle of Avalon.

The bliss did not last long. An army of wraiths swooped down on them, covering everything in ice. He fought with all his might and skill, but they were too many. They kidnapped the woman and vanished. He shook off the bliss and found himself back in the real world, a witcher, like before. His purpose in life had become to find the wraiths, find that woman. Yennefer. Now he remembered.

...

"Are you alright?" Triss startled Geralt again. "You seem shaken, somehow."

"I just remembered things..." Geralt shook his head. "Bits... Fragments... Nothing really coherent. But something about some wraiths stealing people and me chasing them... The Wild Hunt, isn't it what it's called? They swoop down from another realm, freeze everything and kidnap people. I remember chasing them and never quite managing to catch them."

"Well, if your memory seems to be returning, then perhaps the Roses of Remembrance can help," Triss looked worried.

"The last thing I need now is a flower," Geralt scowled.

"Those are not just flowers," Triss smiled. "If they are indeed the legendary elven Roses of Remembrance, they hold powerful magic that can help restore your memory. More than just in fragments."

"Well, then perhaps it's worth a shot," Geralt nodded. "I'll get them." Then noticing Triss' protests, he smiled: "I've got to do it on my own, Triss. No offence."

Geralt's memories were his own. If the flowers were going to cause more of them to come rushing in, he wanted privacy. Besides, wasn't it also the place where the kingslayer was laying in wait? Why did everything seem to be connected..?

23 First Seed, 4E195 - Business as usual

"Boots or trousers?" Geralt was looking over the offering at a leatherwork shop in Flotsam. He already ordered new lightweight armour, and now he only had enough funds for either new boots or new leather trousers, not both.

"I do have these cheaper items too," the craftsman was pointing at a pile of worn out boots and ripped trousers in the corner.

"Boots," Geralt said decisively. "The best ones that you can make. From that smooth leather over there," he pointed at a pile of high quality leathers covered up with much shabbier stuff. "I know you've got the materials," he glared at the craftsman who just a minute ago was complaining of a complete lack of suitable leathers due to monster infestation.

"Oh very well," the craftsman sighed but decided not to argue with an angry witcher.

With the practical matters taken care of, Geralt briefly hesitated where to go next. Should he go in search of Roses of Remembrance that should - in theory - help him recover his memory, or should he go talk to the local troll who for some reason stopped taking care of the bridge over the river. "Troll, really," Geralt smirked. "They employ a troll to maintain the bridge! And now they want me to kill it because the bridge is in disrepair. I don't think so," he shook his head and went to see the troll.

Witchers did not normally kill trolls because trolls were sapient beings. Perhaps not the smartest, but smart enough to learn human tongue and make themselves understood. Smarter than some people, in fact. No, Geralt was not about to just kill that troll.

After an initial squabble, the troll was ready to talk.

"Give vodka or no pass!" The troll wasn't joking.

"You stink!" Geralt covered his nose. "What's with all the drinking?"

"Can't sleep," the troll complained. "Was away fixing the bridge, came back, my woman dead, head missing. Was good woman, cooked food. Now lonely, no food, need vodka."

"Hmm... I don't think you need vodka," Geralt squinted. "Let me ask around."

The troll sat down heavily, sobbing. Geralt went back to Flotsam. "Someone killed the female troll for her head... Why? To stuff it and hang on a wall, no doubt. Someone whose... yeah... too small or something." It was always the same story. "Except that such a someone won't be able to kill a troll."

Walking from house to house, he found a troll's head on the wall of the leatherwork craftsman. "Oh man, I don't want to kill him," thought Geralt. "He's a good craftsman! If not entirely honest... Hmm... He's also too skinny to kill a troll..."

"Where did you get that troll's head?" He asked the craftsman.

"Impressive, isn't it?" The craftsman smiled proudly. "Bought it from a bunch of tough guys. Cost me an arm and a leg, too!"

"And it cost the troll her life," Geralt remarked. "Where can I find these tough guys?"

Something about Geralt made the craftsman take several steps back which put him right against the wall. Paling and swallowing hard, he stummered: "At the inn... some of them at least have been hanging around the inn..."

At the inn it was a similar story. A bulky fellow named Tiny was taking up too much space. He initially refused to tell Geralt anything, so Geralt had to resort to the ancient art of diplomacy. "You heard of Blaviken?" He glared at Tiny. "Start talking or I'll smear your guts on the wall!"

"Ah... I've heard of Blaviken... Sliced people in two with a single swing... piles of them..." Tiny paled. "All right, all right, I don't mean any trouble! What do you want to know?"

...

"So the bandits are hanging out at the cemetery," Geralt grinned as he walked back to the village. "How thoughtful of them."

There of course there was a fight since the bandits wanted a demonstration of Geralt's ability of slicing a person in two with a single swing of his sword.

"They never learn," he shook his head, going through their pockets. Some papers were indicating shady activities of the Commandant, and Geralt wasn't at all surprised reading it. He also found a key and decided to look for the bandits' hideout. But first he went to see the troll.

"I found those that killed your woman," he said. "You will find their bodies at the cemetery. Do as you will with them. But please - no more vodka. And fix the bridge."

"I find... at the cemetery... my woman is avenged..." The troll sighed with sadness and relief. "No more vodka, troll's word. Head at peace now."

...

It was getting late and Geralt decided to go back to the inn for the night. He wondered whether he should have returned the head of the female troll to her partner, but that wouldn't have returned her to life. He sighed and put it out of his mind.

In the village there was talk of the troll being busy fixing the bridge again. What with Geralt asking about the stuffed troll's head followed by the slaughter of the local bandits, people quickly figured out what happened.

"Oh thank you, thank you! You did us a great favour!" One of them approached Geralt. "We are all in your debt!"

"Are you now?" Geralt smirked. "Then pay me. There was a price on troll's head, you know, and I missed out on that."

"Err... Umm... Ah..." The peasant blushed uncomfortably. "As it happens... we are... err... a bit light on coin right now..."

"Oh forget it, should have known," Geralt laughed. He'd just have to get his payment in another way.

The bandits' hideout was on the other side of the swamp a short distance from the village. "Why do bandits always choose unhealthy places to set up camp?" He wondered. And then, having been attacked by half a dozen of them, he wondered again: "Why do people attack an armed witcher? Do they have a death wish?"

The hideout yielded some good items, but not enough, Geralt felt. So he returned to Flotsam and collected some tax from loose items lying around the docks. Those dock workers should really be more careful.

With that accomplished, he finally had enough funds for both the trousers and the boots. "And even gloves, although that leaves me skinned again," he smirked.

With the orders placed, he had one last self-imposed errand - to pay a visit to his newly found sister.


...

"Busy?" Geralt put his head through Lena's door. It was late afternoon and the market was growing quiet. He hoped she didn't have customers. Lena was busy grinding down herbs for her potions, and she waved him in.

"This is for you," Geralt put a nice silver ring with a ruby before her. "Sorry about the blood. But this was the only decent thing that I found... that... you know... I thought I could give to a woman..." He fiddled with it uncomfortably. "Err..." he coughed. "I really don't know what to do with this whole sister business."

Lena smiled and picked up the ring - it was clean, there was no blood on it at all, although she realised that Geralt got it from some corpse. But she wasn't exactly squirmish. She put it on - lovely.

"Thank you, Wolf," she smiled. "I like it."

There was an awkward pause, then Lena served stew which diffused the situation greatly. After the meal she moved her chair right up to Geralt's, facing him.

"Tell me," she spoke and lightly touched his knee. "What is it that you really want to talk about?"

...

"I remember, but not enough!" Geralt told Lena what he remembered about the Isle of Avalon and Yennefer. He also told her about the dream he had in the bath tub a few days before. "Yennefer is obviously important. She gave her life for mine... But why? And I feel... I feel there is more to it! I feel like I'm missing something even more important, although what could be more important than that?"

"But you haven't gone for the Roses of Remembrance as Triss suggested," Lena pointed out. "Why? They could help answer these questions."

"May be..." Geralt's brow darkened. "Sile said I didn't get any help with my memory... How did she put it? 'There must have been a reason you didn't get any help.' Triss has been my loyal friend and confidant since... well... for as long as I remember, which is six months. Things just don't add up, Wolf!"

"No, they don't," Lena agreed. "And Triss had been the only sorceress around you until you met Sile here, right?" He nodded and Lena nodded too. "You need to get those roses. See what happens. It's time you remembered more about everything."

They sat quietly for a while.

"Why do I find it easy to talk to you?" Geralt asked, looking straight at Lena. "We might be siblings, but we didn't grow up together. Our life experiences have been completely different. I kill for a living. You are a healer."

"Well..." Lena smiled and blushed for some reason. "I am a healer here. But in fact... I am an assassin."

The conversation that followed was most bizarre. The two people answering to the name "Wolf" had more in common than they knew. Lena suspected it, since she was the one with the memory still intact. They both used blades, although Geralt was clearly stronger and better with them than Lena. They both used magic, although Lena was better at some of it. They both brew poisons and potions, blade oils and elixirs. They were both self-sufficient, never relying on anyone else. They both grew up without parents from an early age. They had both lived far longer than their fellow humans. They were both shunned by men and mer alike - in Geralt's world elves, like humans, didn't trust witcher mutations, and in Lena's world no one liked vampires... ex-vampires... it didn't matter.

"I want to see you use a blade," Geralt grinned. "Sister." His mood was visibly improved. "We should go hunting together. I'll protect you in case it gets too much."

"I don't go after big multi-legged animals, you know," Lena grinned too. "Just two-legged walking upright, mostly. And I strike from the shadows, trying not to get hit at all."

"Which is what I was suggesting," Geralt nodded. "Do you think I just walk into the middle of a nest of endregas and let them get me? I'd be dead on day one."

A discussion of battle tactics followed, and again they found they had much in common.

"Didn't that elf prisoner say that the kingslayer was going to strike near the ruined elven baths?" Lena sat up, suddenly looking determined. "The same place where the Roses of Remembrance grow?" Geralt nodded. "Well then, you'll get your wish, brother. I am coming with you. I feel you'll have a chance to watch me use a blade."

She got up and left the room before Geralt could protest. He heard some drawers being open and shut, some trunks moved, things retrieved from the back of cupboards, etc. He didn't want Triss to come with him to the elven ruins, but then again he didn't tell Triss about his memories either. Perhaps he wouldn't have to face it alone after all, whatever it was...

Geralt was tired. He realised that he had skipped sleep the previous night, the nerves kept him going. And it was once again 3 a.m. When Lena finished rummaging in her trunks and cupboards, she found Geralt asleep on the bed in the treatment room, but she was ready for what was to come.

28 First Seed, 4E195 - It's complicated

The ruined elven baths were peaceful. Geralt picked a flower from a rose bush and hoped that this was the famed Rose of Remembrance. It didn't make him remember anything and he didn't feel any different. He shrugged, disappointed.

"Perhaps Triss needs to make a potion out of it or something," Lena gently touched his elbow. "Put it away and let's go. The kingslayer isn't here either." She too sounded disappointed.

Returning to Flotsam, they went to the inn wondering where Triss could be, but for once she was right there. Heads turned to look at Lena, known as the town's healer, dressed in an altogether different attire and with a sword on her hip. Heads turned again when people realised she came with Geralt.

"I have one of those roses," Geralt went straight to Triss. "Is that the right one? I don't feel anything."

"Yes, this is the right one," Triss nodded, also somehow disappointed. "But it doesn't work like that. It is meant to be used in a ritual... I'll need a few days to get it ready. Say..." She looked over Geralt's shoulder noticing Lena behind him, and measuring her up with a glance. "Interesting..." She took a step towards a more private corner beckoning Geralt to follow. "This business with the kingslayer is weighing on you," she started, suddenly looking quite serious, and Geralt realised she had something weighing on her, too. "The most important thing now is for you to regain your memory, and this ritual with the roses will help with that. You will have a whole new perspective on life. You don't need politics, this is not who you are."

"But I can't just tell Vernon Roche to stuff it," Geralt shook his head. "I'm in it already, like it or not."

"Why can't you tell him to stuff it? You don't owe him anything," Triss looked stern. "Just drop it. Leave. I'll come with you, anywhere you wish to go. I shall be a king's sorceress no longer."

This was rather sudden, Geralt thought, but it did clarify a few things. So this was what Triss really wanted - him. He should have been glad... but he was only flattered. Something didn't add up and he felt being pressured into running away with her. But running away from what? He wished he could remember!

"A life on the run is not a life, Triss," he shook his head. "I have to clear my name first, I have to catch the kingslayer. Let's talk again once that is done... and once I remember a bit more."

Triss smiled, hiding disappointment.

"I'll get to work on that ritual," she nodded, not taking her eyes off Lena who had joined Zoltan and Dandelion at the table, allowing Dandelion to make a pass at her.

...

"I must say those black robes are quite unusual for a healer," Dandelion was putting on his most charming smile. "To say nothing of the sword! Is that the real thing or a fashion accessory? You carry it well!"

"It's a fashion accessory," Geralt joined them, with Triss following. "That, and an assortment of throwing knives, a few daggers and a short blade that she hides under her robes. We expected some company at the ruined baths going by what that dying elf told us on the barge," Geralt turned to Triss. "But no one showed up."

"So for the better, dying would be counter productive just now!" Triss laughed. "But why bring a healer if you expected a fight? You didn't even want me to come along!" Hurt and offence was clearly audible in Triss' words, and Geralt wanted to say something nice, to make her feel better... but at the same time he didn't want to make any promises or take on any kind of a bond before he was ready. He needed to regain his memory first, he felt it more and more acutely.

"Do you mind?" He turned to Lena.

"No, I think it's time," she smiled.

And just as Vernon Roche was entering the inn, Geralt announced that Lena was in fact his newly discovered sister. Fortunately, that announcement had enough sensational value to it that everyone stopped wondering why Flotsam's healer was armed to the teeth.

...

"So the kingslayer wasn't at the baths, eh?" Vernon turned the conversation away from the fifth retelling of how Lena and Geralt discovered that they were siblings. "I wonder... did the elf lie?"

"Probably not," Geralt shook his head. "But he didn't say when the kingslayer would strike, only where. All we know now is that he isn't planning an ambush for me personally."

"You have to speak to Iorveth," Zoltan said, suddenly growing sober. "All right, I'll take you to him."

"Are you..?" Vernon's eyes were ablaze, drilling through Zoltan.

"No," Zoltan shook his head. "Not like that. Not a traitor and no, not with the elves. Not helping them either. But I do have a connection, for my own needs. It's complicated," he sighed, but it seemed to be enough for Vernon. That was too much politics for Geralt, his head started to spin, and he was sure it wasn't because of vodka.

...

Geralt was asleep. Or rather, he woke up but didn't open his eyes yet. His head was about to explode and something was pinching at his back. The pinching got into a sharp pain, he reached to it, grabbed something... still not opening his eyes. "Ouch!" Now his finger felt like it was cut in two. "Gerroffme!!!" But the mudcrab wasn't about to leave without its lunch. Geralt was lying on the beach in the docks of Flotsam, wearing only his underpants and his sword belt, without the swords. "Thank goodness for the underpants," he thought, finally shaking off the mudcrab.

"You were one pretty picture last night," a dock worker grinned at him. "You don't hold your liquer, witcher!" He laughed heartily.

"What happened?" Geralt asked a rather pointless question since it was obvious what had happened. What he really wanted to know is what he'd done with his stuff.

"You got drunk," the dock worker raised an eyebrow. "You and some of Vernon's lads." And he walked off, still laughing.

Geralt was straining to remember what happened the previous night, and this time he could not blame any catastrophic near-death events for his amnesia. He could drink three potions at once, each of which would have killed a man outright, but no, he could not hold his liquer.

...

"Here, take this key, I locked up your stuff until you sobered up," Ves smiled at him when he finally thought of going to Vernon's barracks.

"What happened?" Geralt accepted the key with gratitude and found all of his things securely locked away.

"You and the lads here were celebrating," Ves shrugged. "Something about you getting a sister? Is that true?" Ves giggled, watching Geralt pulling up his garb in front of her, not needing privacy for that. He figured she'd already seen more than she might have wanted to the night before. "Well, and then you went galavanting through Flotsam and you started pulling off your stuff and throwing it around, and I figured you'd want it back later... so I picked it up," she continued matter-of-factly. "Couldn't stop you from getting a tattoo though."

"A tattoo?" Geralt sat up. "Where?" He feared the worst.

"On you neck - right there," Ves pointed it out and Geralt jumped up to a mirror. "You're one of us now - one of Vernon Roche's Blue Stripes Special Division," she giggled again.

"Is that what it is?" Geralt strained to make out the picture in a blurry mirror. "A naked woman with big boobs brandishing a sword?!" The look on his face made Ves explode with laughter. "How come you don't have such a tattoo? You're Vernon's best agent!"

"I might have it where you haven't seen it yet," Ves grinned. "But no, I also don't get drunk and throw my things around."

Geralt gave her a long look. Ves might have played the role of a whore on more than one occasion, but her "clients" never lived to tell the tale. She was a guarded woman, and a good friend, too.

"Thank you for looking out for me," Geralt smiled, wondering whether he had enough funds for a skin clearing salve that would rid him of his tattoo.

...

"When we go to meet Iorveth, it has to be just you and me," Zoltan looked at Geralt sternly. "Your sister cannot come with us," he added watching her getting water from the well in the town square.

"She won't and she will," Geralt smiled. "You'll see."

The meeting was to take place on a clearing some distance from Flotsam. Geralt and Zoltan arrived there first, or rather that was how it looked. Geralt knew that the elves were already in position, hiding in the trees with their arrows poised at them. "I can hear them breathe," Geralt shrugged. "One of them has a cold - he whizzes."

Eventually Iorveth appeared, surrounded by his archers. A conversation took place, a negotiation of sorts, and Iorveth said that the kingslayer was staying at the ruined elven baths.

"But how can it be?" Geralt squinted. "I was there just yesterday, and the place was deserted!"

"Well, he is in hiding, obviously," Iorveth shrugged. "He won't come out unless I ask him to."

Things were making no sense at all, especially considering that the dying elf on the barge was saying the opposite. The only way to resolve this dilemma was by following Iorveth to the ruined baths and then seeing what would occur. Geralt had a bad feeling about this.

Arriving at the baths, things turned even more bizarre.

"We need a pretext," Iorveth said, turning to Geralt. "I shall play your prisoner. You'll bind my hands and take my sword, and lead me to the baths. The kingslayer is there already, you will surrender me to him, and that will allow you to kill him. But beware: my archers are watching you, so no wrong moves!"

"We'll play it by ear," Geralt nodded.

They entered. The kingslayer was indeed sitting there, looking bored, waiting for something. A conversation followed, with the only meaningful bit being the kingslayer introducing himself as Letho and saying that he and Geralt had met and fought together, and that Geralt had saved his life. And now they had to fight each other, because evidently Geralt wanted Letho dead in order to clear his name... the kingslayer had to be slain, surely, and Letho could not allow that...

As Geralt was trying to make up his mind about the situation, Iorveth kept interrupting them, proclaiming that the charade was now over, that Geralt must untie his hands, that his archers would have them all skewered in an instance... He finally raised his voice and indeed half a dozen elven archers jumped out of the bushes ready to turn both Geralt and Letho into pincushions... Geralt looked around, drew his sword... But the elves fell to the ground one by one, each with a crossbow bolt sticking out of their foreheads... Vernon Roche's Blue Stripes commandos appeared on the scene, with Vernon himself running towards Iorveth.

"Give me my sword!" Iorveth screamed, his hands no longer bound.

"No, that was one treason too many." Geralt punched him and turned to Letho, but Letho attacked...

"I cannot let Vernon have me too," he said. "I don't want to fight you but I must. Defend yourself, witcher!"

Letho was a large, muscular fellow. It was suprising just how quickly a man of his size could move, but he moved like a cat. Incredibly strong, agile and skilled with magic, he was in every aspect superior to Geralt.

But Geralt wasn't about to give up easily. "Dying just now would be counter productive," he smiled at Triss' phrase. "I've got to live, I've got to remember what went before. And I don't want to kill Letho."

The paving under their feet gave way and they fell into the lower chamber of the ruined bath, which now became their arena. Geralt versus Letho, a witcher against a witcher.

"You still know how to fight," Letho noted with satisfaction after Geralt rolled away from harm and landed a few hits of his own.

"My memory is gone but my muscles still remember," Geralt grinned. "You made me take the blame for your kingslaying!"

"I didn't; it was you who got stuck to the king's behind," Letho retorted. "That's no place for a witcher!"

"Witchers don't kill kings!"

"I am a witcher no longer!"

At that moment Letho threw away his sword and started casting a spell, a shield at first, which grew stronger, then exploded with an incredible force, throwing Geralt against the opposite wall. Geralt blacked out. Letho picked up his sword and sheathed it.

"You must remember what went before," he said when Geralt came to. "You will not understand what happened today without it. We fought together, you saved my life - you saved us all. I won't kill you." He smiled, hesitated, then added, looking at some shrubbery coming through a breach in the wall: "No, really, sister. I don't fancy the poison on your blade."

Lena stepped forward, her weapon sheathed.

"I didn't think Geralt was ever in danger."

"All right," Letho shook his head, then turned to Geralt. "Is that witch of yours any good at magic? I need her to teleport me. I promise not to hurt her if she behaves."

He nodded and left. Vernon walked in, missing Letho by less than a minute. Geralt was still sitting against the wall where he fell, his legs felt heavy, his head was spinning, all sounds seemed to slur, lights dimmed... "Come on... Triss... he's gone after Triss!" He heard Vernon's voice in the distance. "We've got Iorveth, it makes all the difference!" ... "Some lads dead... Some elves also! It was a good fight..!" ... "Wake up, witcher!"

But Geralt didn't want to wake up. He didn't think that Triss was in any immediate danger. He also thought it was already too late. "Letho is a mage... and Lena brews poisons that frighten a witcher... that smell... beladonna? nightshade? both? ...and I... am getting too old for this..."

A whirlpool opened, there was a flash of white light, and Geralt finally slid to the ground.

30 First Seed, 4E195 - Where is Triss Merigold?

"What did you do?" Geralt finally woke up. He was lying on the stone floor of the ruined elven baths, his body was hurting but otherwise he seemed alright. "Did you put me to sleep with a spell? Or with a poison?" He glared at Lena sitting next to him.

"I did nothing," she shook her head. "I didn't have to. You were exhausted. And Letho's spell, the one that sent you flying, was exceptionally strong."

"And they say witchers' magic is inferior," Geralt smirked. "Letho is stronger than me. Faster. Better with magic..." He sighed. "I wonder if I was always such a second-rate witcher or whether some of my skills got lost along with my memory."

"Don't talk like that," Lena hugged him around the shoulders. "It wasn't just the loss of your memory. You died, remember? Or as good as. Of course you lost some skills."

They sat there a bit longer, talking, but then it was really time to get going.

"Letho wanted to teleport somewhere," Geralt recalled bits of conversation. "My witch... Did he mean Triss?" He smirked. "Yes, of course she could teleport him. He probably pulled her with him too, to make sure that no one knew where they went exactly..."

"Except that he actually told you where he was going," Lena was going over that conversation in her mind as well. "A place called Emden? Or Edden? Emmen? Something like that."

"Aedirn," Geralt nodded. "Far away from here. And you've got to know the exact coordinates... Point being, he's gone, and Triss with him."

"I'm sure you'll find her again some day. Letho wouldn't harm her, I don't think," Lena said firmly.

"I agree," Geralt nodded. "He's got no quarrel with Triss... None that I know of, that is," he added with a grimace. "Oh, my memory!"

"Come on," Lena got up. "Let's return to Flotsam."

...

Flotsam was feasting. The Commandant declared a holiday with free food and drink for everyone, all in honour of Vernon Roche and Geralt of Rivia - the two heros of the day who captured the dreaded elf Iorveth. Geralt's stomach turned over at that speech, but Vernon pinched him - shut up.

"A feast is better than the alternative," he said quietly when they could finally walk away. "Iorveth was planning a bloodbath in Flotsam. He would have done it too, had he got away. That of course would have set off a pogrom against the non-humans living here, who have no connection to Iorveth's group... But that's not important when there's a pogrom going on."

"Some things never change," Geralt sighed. "Blaviken is the one thing I do remember." Then, after a pause, he asked: "What about Triss? Seen her?"

"Not at the feast, no," Vernon suddenly remembered about her. "You'll need to ask around."

Triss was indeed no where to be found. Geralt wondered where she'd been staying all this time, since she wasn't staying with him. That in itself wasn't surprising as they no longer had a royal tent all for themselves. In places like Flotsam, Geralt would normally sleep in caves, in barns, in the woods or in the brothel, and Triss wasn't keen on such accomodation. "But soldiers' barracks? Really?" Geralt scratched his head when several people told him that's where the red-haired sorceress was sleeping. But she wasn't there now. "Perhaps Sile would know?" Geralt wondered, going to her room at the inn.

Sile's room was a mess and Sile herself was also missing. Her bodyguard lay dead in the corner, his neck snapped clean. The floor was covered in blood, Sile's magical megascope was pushed over, there were books and notes everywhere. Someone was searching for something. Going around the room, Geralt spotted a peephole to the room next door - one of the brothel rooms.

"Yes, I know the ice queen from next door, of course," the girl was happy to chat. "And yes, I was curious plenty of times as to what she might be doing there, but she'd always cast a spell to obscure the view and block out the sound. Never got to eavesdrop... err... observe anything," she sighed. "Except today, that is," she brightened up. "I heard noises from next door, and that being so unusual, I just had to look. A red-haired woman walked in, the sorceress - I've seen her around. Started fiddling with that magical contraption in the middle of the room. Then suddenly a man's image appeared! Oh my goodness! He looked like a worm!!" She shuddered.

"A worm?" Geralt promted her. Triss was evidently trying to establish who was the last person that Sile talked to on the megascope. But why would Triss spy on Sile?

"That's what he looked like!" The girl continued. "All creepy! And they talked about the other sorceress, I gathered that much! The red-haired one wanted to know what the other one was asking from that worm-man!"

"And what was it?" Geralt was trying to navigate the complexities of the girl's retelling.

"Something about some king or other... not being able to sire children," she giggled. "I know what he needs - just..."

"Yeah, I know where children come from," Geralt interrupted. "Skip to the next part."

"Well, then it was about money, shops, something like that. The ice queen is looking to own shops, it seems."

"Hmm." As fascinating as it was, this wasn't helping Geralt to find Triss. "Ok, so they've talked. And then what? Know anything about the blood and the mess in the room?"

"Aye," the girl looked sad now. "Just as the red-haired sorceress turned to leave, the door was flung open and a big bulky fellow walked in. The sorceress started on a spell, I could see the fire, but he hit her just once, and the spell fizzled out. 'Open a portal!' he said, and then someone jumped at him from behind, but he was quick - whizzed around, struck down that person... Didn't see who it was or where they came from... You can't see that corner through the hole," she said apologetically. "By that time the sorceress had opened a portal and they were both gone." She stopped talking quite abruptly. "And that's where the ice queen had vanished to as well, I wager," she added, thinking aloud. "Opened a portal to somewhere and puff! - gone."

"All right, thanks," Geralt had heard enough. The girl's story didn't explain the death of the bodyguard, but he decided to focus on the blood. He could follow the trail and see where the wounded person went to, and that person should have more answers.

The blood trail led into the woods. Not too far, it ended on a clearing, and Geralt spotted an elf under a tree. He was very pale from loss of blood. He was one of the locals, not one of Iorveth's men.

"Do you know how old I am?" He spoke when Geralt sat next to him. "Six hundred years. I've seen this forest grow from seed several times over." He looked at the trees around him. "But now she is taking me back."

"What happened?" Geralt asked cautiously.

"Triss asked me for protection," the elf said simply. "I knew not from what, or why even I agreed... I just felt I had to do it. She didn't explain either. She led me to the room in the inn and I killed the bodyguard. Snapped his neck. I killed him! For no reason." He fell silent, and Geralt didn't rush him. "I killed a man for no reason," he repeated. "I was kneeling over him when the door was flung open and a muscular fellow walked in. Triss started casting a spell but he hit her. I jumped up at him from my corner, but he was quick - too quick for me. He got me first. One wound... it was enough. I fell to the ground and he turned to Triss, wanting her to open a portal. She did, and they disappeared into it. And I... came here to die."

He fell silent, and again Geralt didn't rush him.

"Do you know why I drink?" The elf started talking again. "The visions. I drown them in vodka. There are no visions in a drunken haze, and my mind is at peace. I am old, Twinblade, too old even for an elf. But the haze is gone now, and I can see clearly. You must regain your memory. In Aedirn, on a cursed battlefield, where ghosts of fallen soldiers still fight, lift the curse, release their souls, and your memory will return. Then... you will know what to do."

The elf had said his piece. He was watching the forest, from branch to branch, from tree to tree. A deer approached. A hare. A crow. "My forest," the elf smiled. "She's come to say goodbye. Goodbye, Twinblade. Be well."

7 Last Seed. Arcane University. Traven put a bounty on Wolf's head, uh oh.

Whoa, she's pregnant?! Wonder who the father is (or is this pregnancy divine)?

Look at these throwing weapon mods. I might already have Shuriken's Throwing Stars.



Oh my gosh1!! How very nice. She's meeting Falcar too, that douchebag.

Yeah she's gotta feed if she wants to be in the sun. ☀ Pretty sure that's how it works. Wow, she's burning up!

http://chorrol.com/forums/index.php?s=&...st&p=338781

I think we can safely say it's not divine. You know where kids come from, right?

But it is true that she was surprised. She had thought that her past vampirism would have made pregnancy completely impossible. Turns out - not. The Mazken Wellspring not only restored her looks, but also her normal bodily functions, including the possibility of getting pregnant. Uh oh. What is she going to do now? Is it even safe to have a child while also suffering with recessive vampirism? I mean, what if the child gets it and comes out a vampire from birth?

She's been with a few non-mortals though, some of the Daedric lords if I remember correctly, right? So if one of them's the father... hmm... that's be interesting.

EDIT: Hope I got that right! Pretty sure she's made love with some non-mortals, maybe Sanguine? Well if that's incorrect, don't hurt me!



This also crossed my mind. A lot of "firsts" going on here! Not just a vampire carrying a child, but also just carrying a child! I'm not sure anyone in the Fan Fiction forum has had a pregnant character, right? Sure there've been some side actors, but not the main protgagonist, as far as I know.

Oh, that's what you meant by "divine" - Daedric? That's definitely possible! So if the baby has horns... So many questions! She's led a life of a free woman thinking that there was absolutely no chance for her to get pregnant. And now this. This changes everything.

Yea, like, I know Daedra and Aedra and all the gods and demi-gods can appear as human-like (Mannimarco, for instance) but does this mean they can procreate in those forms? And create viable offspring which isn't like Rosemary's Baby (not immediately cursed)?

Do we even know who the father is? I guess that's the first question. Don't answer that though, if that question has an answer in the story.

There are examples in the lore when the Daedra produced offspring with mortals. Whether they were cursed however... That would depend on the intention of the Daedra, I think. For example, Molag Bal produced several kids with Lamae, thus creating vampires. Also Sheogorath produced the Gate Keeper with Relmyna, who was a creature rather than a person. But I believe he also produced normal children with other women (forgot where I read that though, could be wrong). Anyway, there's nothing to say that it's impossible.


She ponders this question quite a lot. So I won't say anything here, you'll see.

Okay, so there are some examples in lore. Pondering on the subject more, I think some Aedra and Daedra can do whatever they please, they're Gods after all. But some of them have better success than others.


Thank you.

15 Rain's Hand, 4E195 - A curse

"It's annoying, there is no other word for it," Geralt swore when yet another drunk bumped into him. An army camp was a mess when the soldiers had nothing to do.

When it became clear that Letho the kingslayer had teleported to the neighbouring kingdom of Aedirn, Geralt immediately wanted to follow. But one thing led to another, and another week had passed before Vernon Roche's Special Forces were ready to board their ship and set sail. And then it was another week before they finally reached the shores of Aedirn, currently occupied by the army of a Kaedweni king... The Northern Kingdoms were a confusing place, with the mighty Pontar River connecting and diving them, all at once.

Finding the shores of Aedirn occupied by an army from the other side of the river, wasn't exactly surprising. Aedirn and Kaedwen had been at war more often than not, each kingdom striving to gain full control over the Pontar River that served as the border between them. This time however things were looking up for the Kaedweni side who held a firm hold of both shores of the river for three years already - a miracle, if there ever was one. There was just one snag: in order for the Kaedweni king to continue his march on Aedirn, his troops had to cross a ravine, and every time they tried that, they got slaughtered by the Aedirn troops lying in wait. But three years ago the Kaedweni king had enough of it, and being a proper warrior himself, he led a large unit of heavily armed and armoured knights and soldiers into battle meaning to get through the ambush and finally destroy Aedirn forces who, he hoped, would not expect such a bold assault and not be prepared for it.

Unfortunately, he was wrong. Aedirn forces did expect it and were well prepared. Having gone through the gorge of the ravine, Kaedweni army found itself face to face with an equally heavily armed opponent, who also cut off their retreat. The battle that followed, was the bloodiest anyone had seen.

But that was only half of the story. When it became obvious that the Kaedweni army had marched into a trap, the sorceress of the Kaedweni king took matters into her own hands and cast a spell that would end the battle: balls of fire started falling from the sky, hitting knights and soldiers of both armies. Men boiled alive in their iron armour like stew in a pot.

Two armies perished on that battlefield, with just a handful of lucky souls surviving on both sides. The Kaedweni king had ordered retreat as soon as he realised what had happened. The sorceress herself was unaffected, having cast a protective sphere around her and leading the king and a few knights back to their camp on the shore of the Pontar River. Whether or not she expected a reward, remains unknown, but the king was furious. He ordered to burn her at the stake.

A few days later it was done. As the flames engulfed the sorceress, she uttered a curse against the king. What kind of a curse? No one knew exactly, but the king's only son was killed during a hunt shortly afterwards and the king became quite unable to sire children, no matter how hard he tried. Was that a curse worthy of a sorceress being burned at the stake? Most people didn't think so and expected further effects of the curse to manifest themselves, namely the king was expected to drop dead any moment.

Three years later the king of Kaedwen was still very much alive, still camping on the Aedirn shore of the Pontar River, and starting to plan a new campain to finally cross the ravine and conquer Aedirn once and for all.

When Vernon Roche's ship arrived on the scene and Vernon and Geralt went to the camp to see the king, they found the king not at home. "He went that way," the guard waved towards the ravine. "Negotiations of some sort. Wait here until he's back."

But Geralt didn't want to wait. His witcher medallion started buzzing, his whole being felt a huge rupture of magic being released in the ravine, and even Vernon noticed that something didn't feel right. The curse had finally erupted.

Geralt bolted, Vernon followed, into the ravine, towards the king.

A huge battle was raging around them. Two armies of charred knights and soldiers fighting each other, falling, rising again. Flames were everywhere. The wraiths of soldiers were boiling inside their ghostly armour.

The king had brought a few knights and two mages to the negotiation, and was now congratulating himself on his wisdom. One of the mages had cast a protective sphere while the other was keeping the wraiths from getting too close. Steel could not harm them, and none had silver swords.

"Don't fight the wraiths, follow me!" Geralt was shouting to Vernon as he cut a wraith-free corridor in the raging battle using both his silver sword and his magic. It didn't take long, and they joined the king's group, finally managed to beat back the wraiths enough to start moving, and were slowly proceeding towards the camp. And thus Geralt once again became attached to a Royal Court, not being able to stand by and allow the curse to consume whoever dared to come close.

"What you did today proves to me that you are not a kingslayer," the king told Geralt when they were finally safely back at the camp. "But can you lift this curse, witcher? I'll never be able to cross that blasted ravine if you don't."

The king's ambitions were not the motivating factor for Geralt, however. The curse was spreading. The fog of war filled with burning wraiths was slowly gaining ground. It had to be stopped, or it would swallow everything.

"...and there, on the battlefield where the wraiths of cursed soldiers are forever fighting..."

Geralt remembered the words of that dying elf in Flotsam.

"Lift the curse, release their souls, and your memory will return. And then... you will know what to do."

Wow, a fascinating bit of witcherworld history!

Never go into battle without your silver sword.

She's following Traven into the cave to meet the Mann. I forgot about this! I forgot that Traven also goes there.

Hmm, okay. Now that the fight is commencing now I remember. Those weird bone things rise up, which prevents us from just leaving Mannimarco's vicinity. A true Boss Fight!

... yeah, you can't just trap Manni's soul, come on now! He's virtually a demigod!

Wow, I completely forgot Traven's demise happens here. But you have to understand, back when I did these quests it was 2009-2010, and I was still in "OMG" mode. I was new, still too blown away by the game to remember the finer (sometimes the grander) details.



Great pic!



I didn't know this! Heh, it explains why he doesn't want his guild practicing these Dark Arts though. It's like telling a child "NO you can't play with that" because the parent already knows playing with that will only result in bad or at least heavy things.

How much time did it take to lay both bodies next to each other like that? Assuming you moved them around in the game and not the CS!




Ask me next time, just send a message. ☕


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Acadian - thanks! Exactly, never leave the house without your silver sword. You never know when you might stumble upon a wraith...

Renee - thanks also! This was my first attempt at making a quest, or rather altering an existing one, so I had no idea what I was doing. It took another year or more before I finally figured it out. Quests remain tricky though, so many things that can go wrong... But practice makes perfect, as they say. Not saying it's perfect now, but it's much improved since then.

Regarding Traven being as old as Mannimarco: I read this somewhere. Cannot guarantee it was 100% true, but I liked the idea and put it into the story. It just makes sense why they should know each other and all that. Gives it depth, I find.

Ha ha yeah, I went on UESP and it sounds like Traven doesn't go to Echo Cave. Instead he morphs himself inside a special Soul Gem, or something. 💎 But it's all good. I like that you altered the story.

Right up front, I can tell you that trying to bend an existing Bethesda quest is really hard to do. Not really recommended, even though you eventually were successful. Because there are all sorts of scripts behind the scenes, really LONG scripts sometimes. So many variables. Stuff can screw up when trying to insert our own material in there, not just for this quest, but any others which come afterwards.

One suggestion I can offer is to make a "stunt double". Just in case that was the real Hannibal Traven, you don't want to try making him do something he's not supposed to do. Instead, make an edited copy of Traven. Remove all the double's scripts, and all his AI. Now you can make the double do whatever the heck you want, and he looks just like the real thing.

I had to make a double of Count Hassildor long ago for Sarah Phimm's story. Tried to edit the original guy but this caused some problems. We don't like problems when trying to write a story! This is only for the sake of the story, of course.

Anyway, nice writeup. Especially the dialog during combat.

Yes, if I remember right, in vanilla Traven commits suicide and sends his soul into that gem which then serves as protection for the player against Mannimarco's control spells. But the same questions remain: if Traven was just a mortal, why would his soul not fit into an ordinary black soul gem? And also, how Traven's soul in the gem would protect the player exactly? It just was jarring to me from the first time I played it. Plus: the player is now forced to become the Arch Mage, like it or not. Bah.

I change a lot of stories, this is why it's Fan FICTION. This is how things went in Lena Wolf's world, as opposed to someone else's.

20 Rain's Hand, 4E195 - The fog of war

Lifting a curse is a complex business that requires knowing the exact circumstances when the curse was placed as well as procuring of important artefacts connected to it. To lift the curse over the battlefield, Geralt had to learn everything he could about the execution of the sorceress as well as about the battle that was being re-enacted in the curse. This meant talking to everyone in the camp and piecing together scraps of information, while discarding superstitious beliefs, distorted memories and outright lies. It wasn't an easy task by any stretch of imagination.

"What can you tell me about this curse?" Geralt started with the court sorcerer - one of the few male sorcerers around. He was old and powerful, if a bit ill-tempered, but Geralt prefered his directness to the usual intrigues of the sorceresses.

"It's a blood curse," the sorcerer started explaining. He told Geralt about the theory behind it, as well as about the circumstances of the execution, as far as he knew them, since he didn't witness it himself, having been appointed as a replacement of the sorceress burned at the stake. All this information was very useful, but something was missing.

"Have you cast any curses yourself?" Geralt went to the heart of the matter.

"I have, but nothing on this scale," the sorcerer admitted. "I once gave donkey's tail and ears to someone and another time made all the pots in the kitchen jump about..." He blushed a little and trailed off.

"Have you ever lifted a curse?" Geralt remained unperturbed.

"Never," the sorcerer admitted.

"So, you don't actually know how to do it," Geralt summarised. "All right, I'll tell you what we need..."

With the working relationship thus established, they could finally get started. Geralt would have to do all the work, while the sorcerer would provide the necessary magical mixtures, powders and sigils.

"You realise that fairy dust is extremely expensive?" The sorcerer looked up when Geralt said he needed a fair amount to draw runes. "Who's paying for the ingredients?"

"Since it's the king who wants the curse lifted, he's the client," Geralt shrugged. "Ask him."

...

"This is all very interesting, and the ale isn't bad here, but I need more than just horrified tales," Geralt thought after another conversation with a bunch of drunken soldiers. Drunken soldiers were a much better source of information than sober ones, although it did mean that Geralt had to join in the drinking. His head was throbbing. "I'll have to do some field research," he concluded and shivered. That meant going into the cursed area and facing the wraiths again, this time on his own. "Better get some rest first, and prepare."

For all the talk of Geralt's appointment to the king's court, he wasn't actually given a place to sleep. Of course he could always go to the brothel that followed the camp around, but their fees were excessive if you just wanted to sleep. So Geralt joined Vernon's Special Forces on their encampment just outside the walls of the main army camp. If he was going to sleep among soldiers, he prefered as small a group of them as possible.

"What are you going to do?" Vernon asked him at breakfast. "What do you need to do to lift the curse from the battlefield?"

"Don't know exactly yet," Geralt shook his head. "Establishing the facts is the first step. And I'm mostly getting fairy tales. I'm going to the battlefield right after breakfast."

"You WHAT?!" Vernon nearly jumped up. "It's swirming with wraiths! Wraiths that cannot be defeated! Wraiths that rise again the moment you put them down! It's certain death! You're mad!"

"It's the best way to get a feel for the curse," Geralt cut off, rising from the table. "And no, you can't come with me, even though you do have a silver sword now. You're still not a witcher. You'll perish."

He checked the vials on his belt - to drink right before entering the fog of war - and marched off towards the boundary beyond which any and all would perish.

...

"You stink!!" Did wraiths stink? Did they even have a scent? Geralt didn't think so, but he swore anyway. "Ugh, you're ugly!!!" He didn't really have the time to notice what each of the wraiths looked like, but swearing was helping him to stay focussed.

The battle was ferocious, as ever. The wraiths were fighting each other without inflicting any damage, but immediately switched to Geralt as soon as he approached. They were inflicting plenty of damage to him. He twisted and twirled, but fighting a dozen wraiths surrounding him from all sides, wasn't easy.

"These wraiths are really strong," Geralt figured he should start making mental notes, since this was the reason for his visit to the fog of war. "They are really the wraiths of the knights and soldiers that fell in that battle. Hmm." He rolled away from the onslaught and crouched behind a barricade. It was time to observe rather than fight. Most wraiths resumed fighting each other, but a few followed Geralt and were hovering by the barricade, although thankfully were not able to pass through it. "Strange," Geralt thought. "They are wraiths, that is ghosts, yet they cannot pass through a piece of wood? Other ghosts have no such issues..." He rattled the barricade, and it appeared quite solid and ordinary.

He sat there, watching the wraiths fight each other. Some fell, dropping their shields and swords, collapsing in a heap of armour. Then a new wraith would rise on the same spot, with its own shield, sword and armour, to continue fighting. The remnants of the fallen wraith would fade and vanish after a time. But not always. Geralt noticed a sword left behind, a shield, a breastplate. "The curse isn't perfect," he shook his head. "It will make it harder to lift. I should collect what remnants I can." This meant getting back onto the battlefield. "I've got to be quick - the potion effects will soon run out." And that would mean certain death, even for a witcher.

Geralt dashed from behind the barricade, and half a dozen wraiths turned, noticing his approach. His plan was to dash from one artefact to the next, pick them up quickly and keep running before the wraiths in their heavy armour had a chance to catch up. As unlikely as it sounded, this was the best plan he had.

A sword on the ground. That was easy. Pick it up, dash. Just a handful of wraiths came close, and only a few hits connected. Geralt chose to ignore it.

A shield. Too big, too heavy, too unwieldy. Geralt was not used to shields, and he could not run with one. He picked it up at first but couldn't sling it onto his back, fumbled with it, then dropped it, ready to dash. Too late - he was surrounded by a dozen of wraiths again, meaning business. Blows were raining on him, and he had serious trouble landing any hits on the wraiths - their shields were just as solid as the barricade. "This curse is designed to kill anyone who enters!" He realised, rather belatedly. "The armour and weapons here are real, not what you usually see on wraiths..! I should get out, now!"

But which way was the exit? All he saw around him was flaming red fog with fires erupting from the ground, wraiths fighting wraiths, a battle without end, in time or in space. Was there even an exit at all?

"Damn it!" Geralt managed to roll away from the group of wraiths assaulting him, only to come face to face with a huge hulk made out of pieces of armour, shields and weapons. It was wielding an enormous claymore and seemed completely invulnerable. "The spirit of war," Geralt realised. "Not invulnerable, but too hard for me now. Where's the way out?"

The spirit of war raised its claymore, but Geralt was already falling - another wraith pierced him with its sword from behind. Perhaps this curse was not meant to be lifted after all.

...

Geralt was dead. Or at least this was what he thought. Then he caught himself: "If I'm thinking that I'm dead, I am definitely still alive!" He opened his eyes. He was still on the battlefield surrounded by the fog of war. The wraiths were still fighting each other. The spirit of war... Well... The spirit of war was fighting something... or someone... Geralt couldn't tell - the fog made it hard to see, everything was just red. "Time to leave," he thought, trying to find a way out. "May be through there." A patch of fog looked slightly lighter and slightly less red than the rest. He tried to move, but couldn't. The witcher potions that he had drunk before going in, had already run out, and all his body could do now was try not to die. There was no energy left for movement. Besides, he was still bleeding. "Damn it," he thought. "I'll just bleed out here." He blacked out again.

...

Next time when Geralt opened his eyes, he realised that he was lying closer to the less red patch of fog. Did he even see a little bit of light blue behind it? Or was that only what he wanted to see? But he had moved, he definitely had moved... Or did the fog move?

He looked around. The spirit of war was still engaged in battle with... something white? Geralt couldn't be sure, it could just be a hallucination, considering how much blood he'd lost, how much blood he was still loosing.

A group of wraiths was fighting nearby. "They are not fighting each other," Geralt realised, trying to see who was in their midst. "Which idiot got sucked into this fog of war..?" He wondered. Besides himself, that is. But he could not see anyone - the wraiths seemed to be fighting an empty space.

Someone was tugging on his shoulders, dragging him towards the less red patch of fog. Geralt tried to cock his head to see who stood behind him... Wait, what? Wings? Leathery red wings? Then the red fog of war swallowed all again.

...

"Did I see wings?" Geralt came to, tried to look around, but his vision was blurry and everything just looked red. "Must have imagined it." He sighed. "Does everyone get such weird visions when they are about to die, I wonder?"

...

"This is just foolishness," a young woman dressed in black was cursing under her breath. "How did you manage to live this long?" She was tugging on Geralt's shoulders, slowly dragging him towards the less red patch of fog. The spirit of war dealt a heavy blow to the white hulk it was fighting, and the hulk vanished with a pop. "Oh, hang on..." The woman let go of Geralt's shoulders and dashed into the battle, towards the spirit of war. She quickly cast a spell, then vanished. The wraiths that followed her, stopped, confused. The spirit of war was once again engaging a Frost Atronach. "They don't last long in this heat, but at least they deal some damage," the woman muttered, grabbing Geralt's shoulders again.

Not all wraiths were easily confused, however. Some quickly recovered, noticed the woman and started moving towards her, making other wraiths follow, shields up, swords at the ready.

"Damn!" The woman cursed, let go of Geralt's shoulders and cast a spell.

Red dragon wings closed around them, she grabbed Geralt's shoulders again and continued dragging him away, letting the wraiths hit the wings. Geralt finally managed to cock his head enough to see who was dragging him. Horns? Did he see horns? And scales? He definitely saw scales, but horns could just be a helmet. A full face closed helmet, perhaps? He squinted at the hands grabbing his shoulders. Mighty long claws and more scales. One of the claws pierced his shoulder and all went black.

...

"She is your sister, there is no doubt," Vernon leaned to look into Geralt's eyes. "Just as stubborn."

Geralt was lying on a cot in Vernon's tent, he was stripped of his armour, fresh bandages covering most of his body.

"You're alive, I'll leave you two to catch up." Vernon got up and left signalling Ves and everyone else in the tent to leave.

Lena nodded and smiled, sitting down next to Geralt.

"How did you get here?" Geralt tried to sit up but couldn't.

"Sailed with a merchant ship," Lena shrugged. "I got here just this morning, in fact. The king wouldn't let anyone enter the army camp, but I saw Vernon's flags on this encampment and came here. And what do I find on arrival?" A deep frown started to gather on her forehead. "Vernon and Ves gone, rumours in camp that you went to a certain death... I won't repeat the speculations as to why, but what were you thinking?!" Lena was getting angry, her face turning pink, then red. "I ran after Vernon and Ves, they were there by the fog boundary, having tried to go in after you a few times, both wounded and bleeding! They could never survive those wraiths!!"

"I know!" Geralt still couldn't get up, but he could raise his voice. "I told Vernon not to follow!"

"Vernon is too good a friend not to!" Lena retorted, now nearly breathing fire. "You should have known! It was too dangerous even for you, witcher!"

Geralt made a superhuman effort and sat up.

"I do what I have to do, and if I perish in battle, so be it!" He glared at Lena. "No witcher dies in his bed!"

"Not true!" Lena glared back. "Not every witcher is as reckless as you are!"

They sat there, glaring at each other. Dandelion walked in, and immediately walked out, although rumour has it that one of his most successful ballads was based on this encounter. Fire-breathing dragons can make any ballad into a success.

"What did I see there, in the fog?" Geralt asked in a slightly calmer tone. "Wings, horns and scales? Did you summon a dragon?"

"I wish I could," Lena sighed, calming a little too. "That's Dragon Skin. A spell I got from birth. It gives protection for a time. Did I really get scales? And wings? I don't use it often, but I've never heard of scales and wings before. It did help though." She stretched out her hand pulling up the sleeve. Scale outlines were clearly visible on her skin. "Wow, look at that!" She examined them in wonder. "Did I really transform?" She looked at Geralt, puzzled. "It never happened before..."

"Perhaps you never were in quite so much danger before," Geralt suggested. "What possessed you to go into the fog of war?! You are not a witcher!!"

"No, but a certain witcher went in and wasn't coming out!! I had no choice!!!"

...

No one dared to enter the tent for a good few hours, even after the shouting stopped. In the tent peace eventually returned, and Geralt had to admit that somehow Lena managed to survive the fog of war, being neither a sorceress, nor a witcher.

"Stealth," Lena shrugged. "Stealth and diversion. And, well, Dragon Skin. I didn't go there to fight them, I went to get you out. I didn't even unsheath my sword, not once." She unsheathed her sword - it was covered in blood. "How..?" She raised her eyes to Geralt.

"It's a curse," he sighed. "It wasn't a regular battle. Those were not normal wraiths. It's a blood curse," he was examining Lena's sword. "I'm keeping this, it's an important artefact. Need to figure out whose blood it is, but I think I know..." He shook his head, carefully sheathing Lena's blood-covered sword. "You'll need to tell me how you really survived in there," he looked at her sternly. "You've had practice with something like this. You knew what to do. I need to know."

"Yes," Lena nodded, her face turning somber. "It was just like the Deadlands of Oblivion. Different creatures, the same concept. Get what you came for and try not to fight. There's no other way but through..."

25 Rain's Hand, 4E195 - Visions

"Go to the sorceress' shrine at night and drink this potion," a visionary told Geralt. "Then come back here and tell me exactly what visions you've had."

The thing with trying to get to the truth is that you never know which path would bring results. As such, Geralt was exploring every lead, no matter now strange. He simply had to know all the details of the execution. The visionary was a monk of sorts that lived in a hut some distance away from the army camp. He made candles that he gave (well, sold) to the soldiers that wanted holy protection from any and all evil. Geralt wasn't sure about the protection from evil, but the candles did seem to keep the wild beasts and monsters away, possibly due to their unbelievable stench.

When the king had ordered to burn the sorceress at the stake, he intended for her to die in agony. Instead she charmed one of the guards and made him pierce her heart with his spear, thus sparing her most of the suffering. That guard never recovered from the charm spell and became the visionary.

All of that Geralt had pieced together from listening to soldiers' tales, and having met the visionary, he was certain that that's exactly what happened. What he wanted now was the spear used to pierce the sorceress' heart. That was a very important artefact for lifting the curse. But the visionary refused to talk about it until Geralt joined his cult by spending the night at the sorceress' shrine while under the influence of a vision-inducing potion.

Geralt wasn't sure what to expect, but spending the night by any shrine was never a good idea, so he prepared for the worst. Potions, weapons, armour, the lot. The way to the shrine was indeed dangerous with various monsters big and small blocking it, but once cleared, the shrine was peaceful. Geralt drank the potion and braced for visions.

...

"I don't know what that meant!" Geralt shrugged, laughing off this story. He just had to tell his friends about the phallic forest that was his vision. "The visionary thought his herbs were off, he'd been having those visions for weeks, apparently! He was so relieved that I had the same dream, that he told me all about the execution and the spear!"

"Personally, I think that it's your obsession with that spear that caused the vision," Ves tried to speak between giggles. "Both of you!"

"No, don't you see!" Dandelion looked up from his mug of ale. "It's Geralt's never-satisfied lust that manifested itself! And the monk's in the same situation, obviously."

"Never-satisfied lust?" Now Zoltan looked up. "The brothel is just over there, mate. That problem is easily cured!"

...

After a few more conversations with soldiers and other folk, Geralt finally managed to piece together reasonably reliable indications of the whereabouts of some important artefacts needed to lift the curse, including the spear. The bad news was that they were on the other side of the fog of war, and there was no other way to get there than to cross it.

"So, now my field research pays off," he was relishing his "I told you so" moment. "Now that I know what to expect in there, I shall be able to cross without too much trouble."

"Cross and hopefully come out alive, you mean," Lena corrected him. "But Ok. Can the court sorcerer not provide you some help? He was very effective keeping the wraiths at bay, wasn't he?"

"Well, now that you mention it..."

Yeah, why not, talk to the sorcerer. The sorcerer had a very obvious "better you than me" attitute to it, but he did give Geralt a protective amulet. "This won't create a sphere, but it will show you the way and confuse the wraiths for a bit, so you should be able to run past them," he said. Geralt wasn't so sure about all the "should" and "would" in that, but his choices were to go through the fog with or without the amulet, and he chose with.

"Here, take this armour too," the sorcerer handed him a heavily enchanted chainmail. "A gift from the king. He wants to see you back alive, it appears."

To tell the truth, Geralt was putting more trust into the armour than the amulet, but he took both. His swords needed an upgrade as well, and he wanted runes on the armour, and a healthy stock of potions and bombs, and, and, and...

"Are you planning on leaving at all or are you preparing to open a stall here?" Lena was laughing at the large number of vials and gadgets laid out on the main table in Vernon's tent. A high pile of disgusting looking animal parts was completing the scene.

"Gear is expensive," Geralt looked up. "I lost my favourite blue meteorite sword to that damned dragon right at the start, and now it's time to have a replacement made. The smith here delivers decent work. But it's not cheap and if you think that a witcher can survive on witcher's fees, you're being naive." He kept piling animal parts on the table. "These are for sale. I have to skin every monster I kill if I want that blue meteorite sword again."

...

Geralt didn't really need any enchanted amulets to cross the fog of war. The amulet wasn't keeping the wraiths away either, wasn't making Geralt invisible, nothing of the sort. But it did show the way. Of course, with the field research that Geralt had performed previously, he already knew where to go. It wasn't the fog of war that he was weary about, it was the reception on the other side, and there was no amulet that could help with that.

"Stop right there!" Half a dozen elves with bows and crossbows were blocking the way as Geralt emerged from the fog. "Turn around or die, traitor!"

Traitor? But Geralt never swore allegiance to those elves... perhaps it was just a general insult. Thankfully, Zoltan was there to talk sense into them.

"Don't do anything rash!" It was remarkable how he could look down on them while being half their height, but dwarves had their ways, and although non-humans did tend to stick together against humans, dwarves and elves didn't really get on. "Geralt is not the enemy!" Zoltan continued chastising the elves. "Turn your bows elsewhere!"

With the situation thus diffused, Geralt was allowed to proceed. They would not kill him today, but he wasn't so sure about tomorrow. It was a typical situation of getting on with the job and heading back as soon as possible.

Geralt's job on this side of the fog of war was to find several artefacts needed to lift the curse. They were there somewhere... buried with the dead in the catacombs, lost and won in dice games, sold for profit or simply thrown away and found again... It was the usual run-around to track them down, a job that had nothing to do with slaying monsters and everything to do with talking to people, and Geralt knew which he preferred. "I think they should have trained us in speechcraft more when we were kids," he was musing to himself. "Not everything can be solved with a sword, unfortunately."

As bad as talking to people was, talking to wraiths was worse still, and one of the artefacts was in possession of a wraith. "I wonder if I can just kill him," Geralt was eyeing the wraith of a commander before him. "Hmm... He looks tough and probably draws on the energies of all the soldiers buried here as well." Geralt tried conversation first. He rightly guessed that the wraith was quite willing to give away the artefact to a living person, as that artefact was what was binding it to the mortal world, but it had to be sure that it was the "right" person, "worthy" of carrying the artefact. Was Geralt the right person? He tried to convince the wraith that he was.

...

"Bah, lying to a wraith feels even worse that lying to a living person," he shivered when it was done. There was something inherently wrong about it. It was going to give him nightmares, he just knew it.

...

It's been three days, and Geralt was still chasing the artefacts, still going through the catacombs, fighting wraiths and necrophages, and he was starting to get tired. He forgot to sleep, as you couldn't tell day from night underground. Finally he decided that rest was imperative, even though he didn't trust the elves not to kill him in his sleep. He found a peaceful corner of the woods near an old shrine of the good kind, and dropped to his knees to meditate. He wouldn't get a bed until he got back to the army camp anyway.

...

A pack of wolves was on a hunt, following a deer, as was their custom. The deer was swift, it jumped high and zig-zagged trying to throw off the wolves. The chase spooked other animals, wolves from a rival pack, worgs, wild boar... The wolves were now the hunted as well as the hunters. Such was the way of nature.

The alpha wolf stopped and howled, calling the pack to his side. They'd ventured too far into the other pack's territory, that deer wasn't worth it. Plenty of game on their own turf, it was time to retreat. He waited, watching his pack assemble, then they turned back. They ran past a man with a sword... the man was advancing towards something behind them. More wolves? Perhaps...

The alpha wolf of the other pack stopped and howled too. A great wolf with a snow-white coat, a direwolf perhaps, rare but not unheard of, the further North you went. He bared his fangs, watching the man with the sword approach. The man drew his sword, silver glistening in the moonlight. The other direwolves backed off, but the alpha stood his ground. His orange eyes glowed, vertical pupils widening with the adrenaline rush.

"What..?" The man with the sword hesitated, his own orange eyes with vertical pupils starting to dim. "You..?" He shook his head, sheathing his sword and turning to leave. "See you, White Wolf."

...

Geralt opened his eyes, woken up by the rays of dawn. It was one of those dreams... He looked around. A flock of crows was searching for worms at the foot of the shrine, they didn't mind him sitting there. One crow perched higher, it seemed to be looking into his face... Not a crow, a raven. Geralt met its gaze. The bird's intelligent eyes were telling him something... Why did it seem familiar..?

...

With the artefacts finally obtained, Geralt could return to the army camp. Crossing the fog of war became an almost easy feat for him how, he was getting quite good at avoiding the wraiths. And may be the amulet did help, after all. "Sile wouldn't give me a fake trinket, that's beneath her," Geralt thought, remembering that the sorcerer did say the amulet was from Sile. "May be it works in ways I cannot quite see." May be it did, or may be it was simply nice to get help without strings attached.

As Geralt emerged from the fog on the side of the camp, he found Vernon and some of his soldiers kneeling over fresh corpses.

"What happened?" Geralt looked around.

"An attack by the other side... whatever the other side is, in this confusing war," Vernon shrugged. "That's nothing unusual. What was unusual however, was that a mage appeared from the fog and these soldiers attacked him, as if they were expecting him. His corpse is over there," Vernon pointed at a corpse of a man wearing robes. "We've already gone through the pockets - nothing noteworthy, and we don't recognise him. But when he got attacked, he dropped a figurine, and I could have sworn it looked exactly like Triss! If such a thing was even possible... And that's what the attackers were after, it seems, because one of them grabbed the figurine and ran, leaving us engaged with the others. It's like they were ready to sacrifice those soldiers just so one of them could take off with the figurine... I wonder what all that was about." He shook his head, not able to make sense of it.

"That's not good," Geralt looked somber. "That figurine probably was Triss - the real Triss. It's called 'artefact compression', a terrible practice, really, but useful if you want to kidnap someone. She should be alright, once the spell is reversed," he added, scratching his chin. "The real question is indeed who those people were, where they were taking her and why. Well, it's several questions, but still..."

A search of the environs didn't reveal much. When they finally thought of checking the ships moored along the river bank, it was too late - one of them had raised its sails and was moving away quickly, too quickly to catch up.

"That'll be them," Vernon scowled. "The Nilfgardians - look at the flags. They are sailing to Loc Muine." He paused, but noticing Geralt's puzzled expression, he continued: "A large summit is being planned there, a summit to end all wars, if you believe in such a fairy tale. But a lot of important people will be present, with a lot of intrigue and politics being played out. Triss is obviously involved. Did she say anything? No? Kept you in the dark as well, I see. Well, we'll soon go there too, so I guess we'll find out one way or the other."

They stood there, watching the river a bit longer. The night had fallen and Geralt suddenly felt exhausted. He needed to talk to the king, now that he'd brought those artefacts for lifting the curse; he wanted to thank Sile for the amulet; he had to see the court sorcerer about those magical powders and sigils... and all of it could wait. He dropped to his knees for a few hours of meditation, leaving even sleep in a bed for another day.

...

A raven landed next to Geralt and tentatively took a few steps towards him. Geralt heard it and slightly opened one eye, just enough to peek, but the raven noticed. It took a few more steps and laid a sprig before him - wolfsbane. Geralt took it. The raven flapped its wings rising into the air, but didn't fly away, landing on Geralt's shoulder instead, its claws gripping the chainmail. A faint scent of lilac and gooseberries wafted in.

...

Geralt opened his eyes. He was still sitting on the beach, undisturbed. Vernon and his soldiers had long gone back to their camp, there were no monsters in the water and no one had any reason to go near him. A sprig of wolfsbane lay in his lap.

Intriguing read, gave me a strong feeling that everything between these two lines was the vision. If that was the intent, then it worked. If not, then I'm lost.

A sprig of wolfsbane, now what could that mean? Beware the creatures of the night.

Sorry for the confusion. But Geralt is so confused at this point! He too finds it hard to separate reality from visions.

There are several visions in this episode. The first one where Geralt drinks the visionary's potion, is not actually described. Sorry about that. It's because it was rather... err... too graphic for this website. It was a phallic forest - you can imagine the rest. I kid you not. Witcher is an adult game!

So where Geralt tells about it to his friends, that's reality.

Next Geralt crosses the fog of war and starts looking for the artefacts. When he's finally tired three days later, he finds a quiet spot for meditation. He falls asleep and dreams of the wolves. The fragment between two ... lines is the dream. May be I should have put it in italics. But may be not, because it takes Geralt a while to figure out it was just a dream.

So this means that talking to the wraith previously was NOT a dream!

Then Geralt goes back to the army camp, crossing the fog of war again. There Vernon tells him about that figurine resembling Triss, and in the end Geralt meditates on the beach again. The raven is the dream. Or is it? What's with the sprig of wolfsbane?

If you're confused, you know how Geralt feels.

28 Rain's Hand, 4E195 - More visions

"I just don't know what's real and what's a dream any more," Geralt was saying to Lena. He had to talk to someone, his head was buzzing, and not with ale. Too many visions and dreams within a short period of time left him confused. Add to that the ever-present feeling that he was wasting his time, that he should be doing something entirely different, something far more important than even clearing his name... but he could not recall what it was. Fog was clouding his mind and his judgement akin to the fog of war on the battlefield. And yes, it made him see red.

"You are not alone in that," Lena said softly. "Dreams are just as real, but they take place on another plane. What have you dreamed about lately?"

"Wolves," Geralt remembered his recent dream. "Grey wolves chasing a deer, then white direwolves pushing back... Nothing unusual in that, just go North, you'll see it in the mountains. But... I think I was one of them."

"Not surprising, really," Lena tried to speak calmly. "The wolf is important to you, to both of us, it's in our name, it's your witcher's school, it's on your swords and in your potions, how can it not be in your dreams? I would not worry."

"It was more than that..." Geralt was looking into the distance. "The direwolves were werewolves, I reckon."

"And?"

"And... it makes no sense, I know," Geralt shrugged. "But there were crows... not in the dream, I think. In the forest where I sat meditating. They stayed with me. And one was a raven. It looked me in the eye... I don't know why I find it important!" He exclaimed defensively, even though Lena listened without responding. "And wolfsbane. You know it?"

"A useful herb, indeed," Lena nodded. "What of it?"

"That raven came back later. Brought me a sprig. Why?" He paused, but Lena didn't answer. "And that scent... Lilac and gooseberries... Ravens are not supposed to smell of lilac and gooseberries..!"

The sat in silence for a while, looking onto the river before them.

"I don't know, Wolf," Lena said softly. "But you do. You will recall it in time. And yeah, I know, it doesn't help you right now."

"Don't say anything to Dandelion, he'll make a ballad of it and I don't want the entire Northern Realms singing about my private life," Geralt smirked. "It's not like that other vision - you know, the first one - that was just stupid. This is serious."

"This goes through your heart," Lena nodded. "I know the feeling."

...

Dreams aside, Geralt had work to do. He had collected all the artefacts required to lift the curse from the battlefield, except one: a protective charm worn by a priest who led a lot of soldiers out of the danger zone. The priest himself perished, not being saved by the charm, but the king still believed in the charm's irrefutable power. And that faith what was made it so important for lifting the curse. The problem was however that the king refused to part with it.

"Does he want that curse lifted or not?!" Geralt could not understand the king's stance when the court sorcerer told him about it. "I need that charm to lift the curse! I've got everything else ready!"

"The king is not the most rational of people," the sorcerer nodded. "Although I've seen worse. You'll have to do him a favour first."

"A favour?" Geralt was stunned. "What favour can I do for a king?"

"Well, you could extricate him from that curse, you know," the sorcerer seemed to have given it some thought already. "Just so that he feels safe, not being affected by it."

"But he isn't affected by it anyway," Geralt shook his head. "If the curse was supposed to kill him, he would have been dead ages ago."

"Ah, but there's still doubt... and his recent troubles with fathering children again... it all adds up."

"All right, all right!" Geralt rolled his eyes. "Don't start. I suppose I could come up with a ritual and make it sound convincing. The sorceress' ghost must still be around, we could use it... I'll have the king release it, good for the ghost, good for the king," he concluded with satisfaction. "That will take a lot of fairy dust though," he grinned, leaving the sorcerer take care of that sticky matter.

...

"And now you've been absolved from the curse!" Geralt declared quite theatrically when the ghost of the sorceress was finally released. It wasn't as simple as that, the king had to draw runes on the ground at the site of execution, then stand in the circle with wraiths swarming all around it. It didn't matter how strongly Geralt had stressed that the king must not leave the circle, he still panicked and ran out when the ghost of the sorceress appeared, right there at the stake, and she started reciting the curse with an eery voice from beyond the mortal realm... The panicking king broke the circle and wraiths started pouring in. But Geralt was ready for them, having half expected something like that to happen - regular folk were just not used to wraiths and ghosts, especially talking ones. It was a long dance for Geralt, but eventually the king had overcome his fear and stabbed the ghost of the sorceress through the heart. That ended the ritual.

"Phew! Is it really over, witcher?" The king was shaking all over. "Am I free from the curse?"

"It is and you are," Geralt smiled. "Your life and your manhood are your own again."

"Well, that calls for a celebration!" The king was radiant. "Come to my tent tonight! You'll have the charm for your other ritual when you're ready to start."

Hearing that, Geralt breathed a sigh of relief. Now he was getting somewhere!

...

When Geralt came to the king's tent in the evening, he didn't expect having to fight or having the save the king's life again, this time for real. But there was an attempt on the king's life and Geralt found himself confronting the attackers, for there were two assassins to deal with. It was a tough battle, they were unusually skilled... they were fast and agile, those were not mere men... no, those were witchers. "The other two that came with Letho," Geralt remembered Letho mentioning them. "And they know me from before... we know each other... except I cannot bloody remember! Arrghhh!!!"

However, the assassins were attacking, and would probably kill him, so Geralt had to fight back, although he tried to wound them rather than kill... wait... it seemed they were doing the same... When the battle was coming to a close, one of the assassins was singed with a bolt of lightening and fell, dead. The other made his escape. Sile had joined the fight.

The king was as grateful to Geralt for saving him again as he was furious at the assassins. The court sorcerer offered to extract the dead assassin's memories in order to learn who they were and why they were there, and the king immediately overruled any and all objections regarding necromancy being forbidden. "I want to know everything! Do whatever you want to do!" He exclaimed and stormed off. The sorcerer started his preparations.

...

"Now, you will need to drink a few fortifying potions to get your heart beating at top efficiency, otherwise you won't survive it," the sorcerer greeted Geralt shortly afterwards.

"What? Me? Why me? What do you need me for? Can't you do it yourself?" Geralt stumbled - he didn't like where it was going.

"Well, see here, Geralt," the sorcerer tried to explain. "This man was a witcher. The ritual will make a living person relive the last day or so of the deceased, and no regular person could possibly do what witchers do for that long and survive! Our metabolism is just not up to it. And since there are no other witchers around, you'll have to do it." He paused, but noticing Geralt's less than pleased expression, he hastened to add: "Oh don't worry - your chances of survival are quite high. You are, after all, a witcher! You'll have some visions, that's all. It's not that bad."

Visions? More visions? Oh, that was bad! But did Geralt have any choice? Truth be told, he didn't, and not because the king had ordered to get to the bottom of that assassination attempt. The dead witcher had known him. Geralt had to have his memories.

...

"You were thrashing like a fish! What happened?!" The sorcerer was trying to prevent Geralt from rolling off the table.

"I relived some of the man's memories," Geralt shrugged. "What did you expect?"

The visions were not spectacular, if you don't think it's spectacular in itself to be in someone else's mind. The sorcerer must have done it right because Geralt was never in any danger, apart from the danger of rolling off the table. The dead man's memory simply showed the path to their hideout. Oh, there were some creatures to fight along the way, but nothing more. It also did not reveal anything new about Geralt, so he was rather disappointed.

Still, he now knew where they were hiding. In fact, he recognised the place because he'd been there a few days before, simply by chance, when he was exploring the environs of the camp. The door had been barred from the other side then, so he hoped it would not be barred now - it was a very solid stone door, nothing that he could force. He went to the hideout immediately hoping to find the other assassin there, the one that escaped.

...

"We didn't want to fight you, we tried not to kill you..." The assassin was lying in a pool of blood. The door to the hideout had not been barred, and although Geralt ran into a couple of gargoyles and a golem along the way, he had no issues finding the wounded assassin otherwise. "We didn't want to leave you behind on the Hunt either... But the Hunt was stronger... We tried... We could have rid the world of that eternal shadow of war... We weren't strong enough..." It seemed he had so much to say, yet not enough life force to say it. "Sile... she helped us a bit... not that it made any difference, the king still lives... but she no longer needed us now, so she killed us... tried to... not well enough... I wonder why..." He paused, gathering strength. "We used her too. We used a lot of people in order to murder the kings... All for our own purpose... Be well, friend..."

Geralt was kneeling by the dying assassin... a dying witcher, rather. A snake medallion around his neck started vibrating. "School of the Viper," Geralt thought. "The same as Letho, the same as the dead assassin back at the camp. Three of them working together, that makes sense. Sile... well, sorceresses are always involved in one intrigue or another... nothing unusual there. She's long gone now, of course." Geralt wasn't interested in Sile's role in the king's assassination attempt, and neither was he surprised that she tried to kill her old accomplices. "It was all deliberate, a sorceress like Sile does not make stupid mistakes. If she had wanted to kill him, he'd been long dead. No, she left him here to talk to me. It was I who inflicted those wounds..." He straightened out the dead witcher's body, laying him to rest. "What did he say about the Hunt though? They didn't want to leave me behind but the Hunt was too strong? If only I could..."

And then a memory washed over Geralt. He remembered the Hunt, but he was alone. Months upon months tracking through the forests and mountains in pursuit of the Hunt, and never quite catching up with them. The wraiths would appear in small villages, they would descend from the sky and freeze everything in sight. They would then kidnap young people, kids in their teens and twenties, kill the rest, or not, they didn't seem to care, and vanish into the sky again with their captives. Yennefer had been the only captive far older than early twenties, but Geralt thought they took her because she was a sorceress. He had been in pursuit of the Hunt in order to find Yennefer. Was that his only purpose? "We could have rid the world of the eternal shadow of war..." That's what the dying witcher said. Yes, finding Yennefer was not Geralt's only objective. Ultimately he was after the Hunt.

"I must be mad," he shook his head. "I cannot possibly do it alone..."

He was still kneeling by the dead witcher, holding a vigil.

...

"I didn't do it alone," Geralt realised some hours later. "I still don't remember this witcher, or the other one from the camp, or even Letho... yet we had fought the Hunt together. Was that before or after the part that I recalled? It doesn't really matter, I guess... I must continue, but I need to remember more."

Finally Geralt turned to leave, his vigil over. He checked the witcher's body once again, and an old notebook fell out of his pocket. Should he take it? Or should he leave the man's private notes buried with him? Considering that it wasn't a grave, Geralt took the notebook. One entry attracted his attention.

He seems different, but in reality is so similar. Our paths have been the same: we survived the Trials, endured the same training and have slain so many monsters that we no longer keep count. So many men, also. The difference is in the details – when I see him moving in combat, I want to laugh, but I also see that he is just as effective, if not more so. There is, however, one critical difference I cannot describe adequately. He has a goal, he is committed to something. He doesn't wander the world as if blown about by the wind. I believe he feels emotions at a level I cannot attain, yet these emotions are not typically human. Is it an illness of some kind? I think he teeters on the brink of instinct and emotion, and that he uses up a lot of energy to maintain his mental health. I hope I get a chance to know him better and learn from him. Nothing specific – just life.

Wolf time. 🐺 And then maybe afterwards I'll be doubly-inspired for some TES4!!

Lena's pondering whether she should consider herself as immortal or not. Good question. Technically she's immortal (right?) but there are times she thinks like she's mortal, I suppose. Hmm. But then the story says she's



Huh. Okay, so maybe she's not immortal, yet she could be at any time...

Right, I was just reading about Sanguine not long ago for some reason. He's supposed to be the Prince who is most involved with mortal affairs, from what I gathered.

This is fascinating, all this talk about the Daedra's involvement into Mundus.

Okay, so she's narrowed the father down to two guys, maybe Sanguine as well.

Yeah, the idea of a vampire child. I don't think it'd be as simple as keeping bottles of blood in a cupboard, knowing how children can be a lot of times it'd be more complicated than that.

edit: whoops... http://chorrol.com/forums/index.php?s=&...st&p=338930

Confusing, isn't it? I still cannot figure it out. Vampires (normal vampires, that is) are supposed to be undead, and yet they can be "killed" in battle. The same as wraiths and skellies. But come back to the same dungeon three days later, and sure enough, they've risen again. Necros too, and bandits... err... no, those are different guys... I think.

But back to vampires. So, you can defeat them, but they rise again after a time, since they are undead. Thus they are immortal. But what about silver weapons and incineration? Or what about if our player character is a vampire? They can die, no issues. Not very immortal then. A little immortal? Does it come in degrees? Can you be 50% pregnant?

Recessive vampirism makes it even more complicated. When Lena's vampirism is in remission, she is not a vampire. She does not require blood, has no fangs, her eyes are not red, etc. So, during that time she must be mortal too. Dangerous if you like playing with swords. Does it mean that she also ages during that time? Probably.

But then when her vampirism flares up, she becomes a vampire, a proper vampire, so probably also immortal. She isn't willing to try it out and see what happens. Does she also age while being a vampire? Umm... no, I guess. Like I said - it's complicated.

5 Second Seed, 4E195 - Lifting the fog of war

"It's time to go about lifting the curse from the battlefield," Geralt stood in the sorcerer's tent again. "I've got everything I need, and the king had promised the charm. Any last minute advice?"

"Indeed," the sorcerer fingered a few books. "I've been wondering what that ritual would actually be like... but none of the books had any answers. I must warn you however that I felt a new presence on the battlefield - there is a new ghost amid the wraiths." He paused, lost in thought. "Oh, and here's the charm. You're all set now."

"You have no idea what to do, do you?" Geralt smirked. "I know the new ghost, I've seen it. It is the spirit of war."

"You... you've seen it?" The sorcerer couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. "But it wasn't there when the fog erupted and we were all trapped in it..."

"And I've been a few times through the fog since then," Geralt reminded him. "I've seen it. But I am not certain that fighting it would lift the curse."

"Just go," the sorcerer sounded more convincing now. "You have the artefacts connected to the curse. The wraiths bound to them will find you in the fog... But whether or not you have to fight them, I have no idea. I am no witcher."

"Aha..." Geralt shook his head, leaving.

...

"I am going into the fog of war in the morning," he was telling his friends at supper that night. "I've got everything I need and there's no point in delaying."

"But you have no idea what to do exactly," Lena said softly. "It's plain to see."

"Every curse is different," Geralt nodded. "And this one is complicated because the ghost of the sorceress who cast it, is actually separate from the curse itself. We've released her ghost, but the curse is unchanged."

"So what are you going to do?" Dandelion was getting confused. "Do you have a plan?"

"Take all the artefacts, wear the best armour I've got, and go in," Geralt smirked. "And hope to survive it, whatever takes place inside." He paused, then looked at everyone at the table in turn. "And none of you is to go after me," he said menacingly. "You hear me? None! You will spoil the exorcism."

...

"So, let's see now..." Geralt entered the fog of war. The wraiths were fighting each other, but none of them seemed to even notice Geralt's presence. That was certainly new. He wandered around the battlefield a bit, parading the artefacts and waiting for something to happen. A wraith approached... and without a word, went right through him.

"Don't just stand there - go! The fighting is over there!" Someone shouted into Geralt's ear, he turned to look - it was a wraith of another soldier, a commander by the looks of his armour. Something felt strange, Geralt had different armour on, his swords were gone and he wore a helmet...

"I don't wear helmets," Geralt thought, taking a closer look at his attire. "Wait... I am..."

"Well, come on, move it!!" The commander was getting agitated. "That way! The battle is that way!"

He wasn't talking to Geralt, he was talking to the helmet-wearing soldier. Which was Geralt. "Possession," Geralt realised. "Oh, that's just great!" He swore, but followed the commander's orders and joined the battle. Why did the wraith of that soldier took possession of his body? Was he carrying an artefact bound to it? Who was that wraith even? So many questions... Geralt had no clue, but somehow knew what was expected of him, of the soldier within him. Not having any better idea, he joined the fighting.

He need not have worried, because the wraiths could not harm each other. The course of the battle had been pre-defined, it seemed. "They are re-enacting what really happened," Geralt guessed. "Something important will occur, and hopefully then... err... we'll see."

Possession stopped as suddenly as it began. Geralt was himself again - his armour was his own, his swords were on his back and he wore no helmet. The fog of war didn't change either though. Something else had to occur.

Four more times Geralt was possessed by different wraiths from both sides of the battle. Once or twice he understood the connection to the artefacts he was carrying, other times he wasn't even sure those were the "correct" wraiths. It didn't matter though because none of those possessions led to anything decisive.

And then he saw it: a wraith of a fearless commander was preparing to fight the spirit of war... "A wraith cannot fight the spirit of war, it will be defeated," Geralt thought. "And as that did not happen in real life, the re-enactment will start from the beginning. This is the cycle that I need to break."

The problem with fearless commanders however is that they don't like to back down, whether they are still of mortal flesh and blood, or already turned into a wraith. Geralt tried talking to the wraith of the commander, but it simply refused to back down. Laughed, too! It really took all of Geralt's persuasion skills to get it to see sense. He did it by saying things exactly as they were: "You are a wraith, the same as all of your soldiers, stuck here in this fog of war, reliving your final day. If you fight that spirit of war, you will lose, and the re-enactment will restart from the beginning. You have to let me take your place, I am a witcher."

The wraith was taken aback, it seemed it didn't realise it was a wraith...

Geralt faced the spirit of war.

That battle was tough. There was every possibility of Geralt being defeated and dying. Contrary to the wraiths, he would not get up and restart the battle from the beginning. He had to survive it, and he had to win.

"Quen," he thought, considering his options. Quen, the shielding sign, was the only magic likely to be of use against the spirit of war. It was made of fire, so Geralt's usual tactic of incineration wasn't going to have much effect... "And let's hope that this sword holds," he unsheathed his blue meteorite silver sword. "I don't want to have it snap or melt or something... I just got it!"

The fight was on. More of a dance of evasion than a fight really. Quen was a shock shield, so all Geralt had to do was keep casting it. It absorbed the blows and delivered a shock to the attacker, and to Geralt's surprise the spirit of war seemed to be quite sensitive to that. The real danger for Geralt was in the huge fireballs falling from the sky, fire arrows shot by the surrounding wraiths impersonating archers, and fire gouts emanating from the spirit of war itself, as well as its massive claymore, shield and fists. (How the spirit of war managed to use both its claymore, its shield and its fists would remain one of the secrets of that curse.)

...

"Phew! Finally!" Geralt stood over a huge pile of armour and weapon pieces that just a moment ago were the spirit of war. The battle was over and Geralt had won. Yet the fog was still covering the battlefield and the wraiths were still fighting each other around him... Did he misjudge the crux of the curse?

"Follow me!" He heard someone call, then noticed a priest walking towards him with some soldiers following. "I'll lead you out of this battlefield. I've got a protective charm."

"The charm..." was all that Geralt could think before the wraith of the priest possessed his body. "I'll lead you out of the battlefield," he heard himself say to the soldiers. Indeed, that must be the way out. All he had to do was allow the wraith possessing him to lead the soldiers and himself out of the fog. Would the possession end in time or would the wraith pull Geralt onto the other side with it, and into death?

...

"Thank goodness you are finally awake!" Geralt stirred and opened his eyes. Dandelion was standing over his bed, playing his lute. "Three days! You've been unconscious for three days! Plus however long you'd been lying there before the fog was finally lifted."

"The fog was lifted?" Geralt squinted - the fog in his head had definitely not been lifted yet.

"Yes, the fog - the curse, remember?" Dandelion squinted too. "You lifted the curse, witcher."

"Aha..." Geralt sat up, looking around. "Then why are we in a brothel?"

"I thought you'd be pleased," Dandelion grinned. "They have the best beds, that's why. When the fog lifted, we waited for you, but you didn't appear, then we went looking and found you there unconsious in the ravine. That was three days ago!! I thought you'd die on me here!!" Dandelion looked rather cross, but also relieved.

"So, it worked then," the fog in Geralt's head started to clear as well.

"You wouldn't believe the things that happened while you were lying there!" Dandelion took a deep breath ready to fill Geralt in on every latest sensation, but Geralt had had enough sensations for one day - it was still the same day as far as he was concerned. He stopped Dandelion's tirade, turned over and fell asleep.

...

Geralt was having another one of those memory dreams. It was about the Wild Hunt, he was chasing the wraiths and never coming close enough to face them. He came quite far North, up into the mountains where the larger and more dangerous creatures made their nests. Creatures, monsters, it wasn't always easy to tell the difference, and it didn't always matter. He saw flashes of magic between the trees, fire perhaps, he heard sounds of battle - someone was battling something large, very large. Geralt dashed, sword at the ready. It was a manticore, a huge, majestic animal, powerful, poisonous, fast and nearly impossible to defeat... Three witchers were battling it, all three badly wounded and heavily poisoned, but the manticore too was already on its last legs. Geralt joined in and together they killed it.

The three witchers were Letho, Auckes and Serrit. Auckes was the dead assassin whose memories Geralt had recently relived; Serrit was the one he talked to and laid to rest; and Letho was the kingslayer. Three witchers from the School of the Viper. Witchers turned assassins. But why? It still remained unclear.

After that fight against the manticore, the four of them pursued the Wild Hunt together. Months upon months, with pretty much the same result as before - always hot on its trail, never coming quite close enough to face them.

...

When Geralt woke up, he remembered the dream quite vividly. He now had the confirmation that Letho was a friend, the same as the other two witchers had been. At that moment Geralt knew that come what may, he would never kill Letho.

As interesting as that memory was, it still didn't reveal anything that Geralt hadn't known already from other people. At best, he now knew that his feeling regarding Letho was right, but that was all. He could not remember when, how or why they split up, whether they managed to catch the Wild Hunt at least once, whether they'd already rescued Yennefer, what gave Geralt his amnesia or how he ended up in gentle care of Triss six months previously.

"That is really strange," he was trying to make sense of it. "Triss said I lost my memory when I died... nearly died... from that pitchfork at Blaviken... But that was before the Wild Hunt... No, in reality I lost my memory later... And those events are still unclear. I wonder what Triss will have to say to that."

21 Second Seed, 4E195 - Crazy few weeks

When Geralt finally dropped to his knees to meditate, he realised that he had not slept for three days. "I am getting too old for this," he thought, shaking his head.

...

Past couple of weeks were beyond crazy. Once the curse over the ravine was lifted, Kaedweni army marched into Aedirn, and heavy battles renewed. Kaedweni king, now free of his personal curse, decided that he no longer needed to tolerate Vernon Roche's Special Forces camping near his own army, and ordered them hanged. They were lured to a "feast" and taken without resistance. Ves was spared, having received the king's special favours as he was eager to double-check his virility. He claimed she enjoyed it, but Geralt and Vernon were sceptical. Vernon wanted to slay the king where he stood when he got the opportunity, but Geralt reminded him that regicide was a double-edged sword and that they were hunting a kingslayer already. As history had shown later, it ultimately made no difference to anything besides Vernon's conscience. But they could not have known it then, of course.

Time was short however and the king could not advance very far into Aedirn - he was due at the peace summit to end all wars. No one believed in it of course, yet everyone attended.

The summit was held in an ancient elven city of Loc Muinne which had been reduced to ruin already many centuries ago. Although most walls still stood, buildings no longer had roofs and rubble blocked most streets. This had its advantages however as it allowed to keep various delegations truly separate from one another with just a few working doors linking different sections of the walled city.

When Vernon and Geralt arrived in Loc Muinne, the nobility was already assembled.

"What are you planning to do?" Geralt suddenly realised that he didn't understand why Vernon was there. "Since Letho killed your king, the country had been in turmoil with the barons tearing it into pieces. The king didn't leave an heir, not a legitimate one anyway... so what now for Temeria?"

Vernon looked very somber.

"Things are bad, indeed," he nodded. "I don't think we can hold Temeria together. But we can try! The king had two children with a local baroness, and he wanted to legitimise them - you know, you were there. We have to act as if it had taken place."

"I don't think it will work..." Geralt shook his head, but Vernon interrupted him.

"This is the only path for me. I have to try to keep the country independent. And those two kids need taking care of anyhow - there bound to be numerous attempts on their lives. I am here to find them and to make sure they stay alive." Vernon paused, not taking his eyes off Geralt. "I could use your help."

"I'm with you," Geralt nodded.

"But what about Triss?" Vernon couldn't believe how easily Geralt agreed to help him.

"Triss should be here somewhere," Geralt squinted. "If that figurine was indeed she, then she's been kidnapped by a powerful mage, or by a powerful group who had a mage among them, such as a Royal Court. She'll manage, she's good with royal courts." He scowled, and now it was Vernon who squinted.

"Something's on your mind," he said slowly. "Another memory? Why such change in attitude towards Triss?"

"Yes, another memory, but no new information," Geralt nodded. "A change in attitude? I don't feel it like that. My attitude towards Triss in the past six months had no background. She is a beautiful woman, she's interested in me, what's there not to like? But her behaviour in the last month or two had been odd, and what I learned and remembered contradicts some of the things she said, so I would say I am simply gaining experience and can see a little past her charms. And yes, I am disappointed."

"Have you recalled anything about Yennefer?" Vernon asked cautiously.

"She is important, very important somehow, I can feel it, but can't remember the details," Geralt sighed. "Was I involved with her? No one is telling me anything..."

"You were trying to free her from the Wild Hunt after she was kidnapped," Vernon reminded him, but Geralt remembered that part. What he rather wanted to know, was whether he was doing it simply because any person kidnapped by the Wild Hunt deserved to be fought over, or whether there was something more about Yennefer in particular. He felt there was more, but he didn't trust himself. "You need to recall it for yourself," Vernon said firmly. "You don't want other people to tell you what to feel."

...

Helping Vernon meant getting thrust into court intrigue, and although Geralt really disliked it, he realised it was necessary under the circumstances. Of the two children in question, one was already dead and the other one was kidnapped and held hostage by the Kaedweni king, the very person whose troubles Geralt had been solving the past month. This was a small world indeed.

"What about the kingslayer?" Vernon asked at some point. "You are still a wanted criminal in the whole of Northern Realms, there's still bounty on your head, and that still needs to be cleared up officially and once and for all. Shouldn't you be chasing the kingslayer instead of helping me?"

"Yes, and I am doing it while helping you," Geralt smiled. "From what I remembered about Letho, he will not be found until he wants to be found, and he is here somewhere too. I don't need to search for him, he will find me. My name will be cleared, I have no longer any doubt. Now, let's focus on finding the girl and getting her out of captivity."

Walking from court to court and talking to various officials was very boring indeed, although occasional attacks on Geralt by various heavily armed gangs did spice things up a bit. Yes, there was still a bounty on his head! Whether the gang leaders believed in Geralt's guilt or not, they didn't care as long as they got the reward. Geralt had no choice but to kill them. "They just never learn," he shook his head, turning over another pile of bodies. How could they learn when they were already dead?

...

"Roche!!" A very angry young woman pulled on Vernon's sleeve as he and Geralt were crossing the central square, absorbed in their conversation. "Don't you turn away from me!!" She had a very shapely and attractive countenance, and Geralt had to raise an eyebrow - why would Vernon want to turn away from someone like that? But Vernon suddenly exploded with anger.

"You!!" His face contorted with rage. "Boussy is dead and Anaise kidnapped!" He hissed, trying to keep his voice down, rather unsuccessfully. Those were the two children of the late king of Temeria. "You were charged with their safety! You failed!!"

"Only because it was an impossible mission!" She retorted, matching Vernon's rage. "What can a nanny do when the kids are travelling in separate carrages without any armed protection and the convoy is getting overwhelmed by bandits?!"

"What..?" Vernon's rage evaporated as suddenly as it rose. "An ambush? That means... there's a traitor in the court," he concluded grimly. "And why no armed escort? That's just madness!"

"You mean... that wasn't the plan?" The young woman softened her tone too, and Geralt reflected that her shapely curves originated in sword training rather than lazy pampering. She was one of Vernon's agents. "All right, I'll tell you what happened," she said amicably, "after Geralt escorts me out of this city and sees me off to safety," she added with a smile. "I have arranged for transport, but I expect several ambushes along the road to the rendez-vous point."

Since Geralt had already agreed to help Vernon, he had no choice but to escort the young lady to her rendez-vous.

...

"That's a fine mess you got yourself into," Geralt shook his head after they defeated yet another group of heavily armed men. "How much further? How many more ambushes, I wonder? And why did you not tell Vernon what happened? I would have helped you anyway."

"Vernon needs to learn to take care of his agents," the woman retorted. "He needs to think it through better. Two kids should mean two nannies! Not just one. Ves could have helped, but no, Ves gets to go play with soldiers, while I am stuck minding young royal brats!" She fumed. "And now the one that was in the other carriage is dead, the poor boy stood no chance. And I wasn't even able to save the girl - too many bandits, they completely overwhelmed us, we had no armed escort, and I was told not to carry a sword to maintain my disguise!" She shook her head in desperation. "Vernon should not have trusted the others to make arrangements for that convoy!"

"I'll tell Vernon to be more careful," Geralt said soothingly. "Come on. There's bound to be more ambushes ahead."

...

"Well, that was your transport," Geralt knelt over a dead fisherman at the rendez-vous point. "At least the boat is still in one piece. Will you manage?"

"I'll have to," the young woman shrugged. "Here, take these letters to Vernon. Tell him what I told you about that convoy, this should be enough to... well... I don't know. There is a traitor, possibly traitors, and these papers clearly show it, but who it is, is another matter." She handed Geralt the documents. "Thank you, witcher."

She got into the boat and rowed away. Geralt stashed the papers and turned to go back to the city.

...

"Hey, look, a cave," Geralt was walking back through the woods, enjoying the nature around him, free of ambushes this time. He felt the need to do something different than talking to court officials. Perhaps he should clear this cave of monsters for a change? Forest caves usually had monsters in them. And so he went in hoping for some entertainment.

The cave didn't disappoint - a group of nekkers made a home there, not a threat for a witcher, as long as he didn't let them surround him. He didn't. Then, as he went deeper in, his medallion began to buzz. "There's something other than nekkers in the depth," he thought. "Something far more dangerous." Geralt proceeded with caution.

The cave passage twisted and turned, then Geralt noticed reflections of a campfire and felt a breeze of fresh air. The tunnel opened to a cavern with an open sky. The moon was rising. A man was sitting by the fire, watching Geralt come in.

"Hello, friend," he said amicably. "You look tired. Please, rest here. I am Dorian."

"Geralt," Geralt introduced himself, eyeing the man. His medallion kept buzzing, but there was no one and nothing else there. Yet, he was tired, and so he dropped to his knees by the fire. "Are you living in this cave? All by yourself?"

"Aye, a man's got to live somewhere," Dorian smiled. "Oh, you mean nekkers in the passages? They don't bother me."

The moon was now clearly visible through the opening. The night was quiet, with just a few animal noises coming from the forest. Geralt's medallion stopped buzzing. Did the danger pass? What was it in the first place? "I'll have to have it checked over," Geralt thought. "Can't have it give out false alarms like that. Perhaps the enchantment got corrupted."

It is only then that Geralt realised that with all the running around, he hadn't slept in three days. "I am getting too old for this," he thought, shaking his head. He could not be sure that Dorian was as peaceful as he appeared, but there was no reason to confront him either. Geralt needed to rest, and Dorian's cavern was as good a place as any. He would not be any safer in another part of that cave or in the open forest, he reckoned, or, certainly, in Loc Muinne.

"You can sleep here, it is quite safe," Dorian must have noticed Geralt's hesitation. "I am no threat to you."

Why did Geralt believe him? He did not know, but he closed his eyes and sank into meditation.

21 Second Seed, 4E195 - The silver light of the moon

Geralt's meditation resembled sleep, and he even had dreams. Yet he remained sitting upright, propped on his heels, his legs folded. Keeping his head high allowed him to hear every minute sound and feel any change in air flow, all without waking up. If any of it was alarming, he would awaken - such was his training. Perhaps for this reason he did not hesitate too much to start meditation in a cave with its owner sitting next to him - a man that Geralt had only just met.

It was a quiet night and the moon was visible through the opening in the ceiling of the cavern. All was still, and the man next to Geralt seemed to be meditating too. He sat cross-legged, watching the moon. An old diary lay nearby, not used in many years by the look of it, covered in dust and mold.

"Yes, tonight," Dorian was watching a ray of moonlight slowly creeping further into the cavern. "Together we'll get it done." When the ray of moonlight reached his position, he transformed. A black werewolf stood in the cavern, his red eyes glowing.

Geralt twitched his nose - the smell woke him up. Yet his medallion remained quiet, not indicating any danger. The ray of moonlight shifted further, now touching Geralt too. He opened his eyes, watching the werewolf, but the werewolf just stood there, not attacking.

Geralt got up. Not all werewolves became as wild and uncontrolled as their appearance would have you believe. Some preserved presence of mind, although that was rare. The witcher would not slay a werewolf that didn't attack.

The ray of moonlight was now touching Geralt's face.

Surely, it wasn't the first time he was out at night... yet that night something was different. He pulled off his glove and saw long claws replace his nails. He braced for a transformation - but that didn't happen. The black werewolf was watching Geralt, then pushed the old diary towards him. Geralt picked it up and read.

The bite is really burning, but does not fester. What kind of a wolf bite is that?

Werewolf. So this is how it happens. Am I still a man or am I a beast? Do beasts write in their diaries? Do men bite other men?

I cannot go back to the village, not even when the moon is not out. It's too dangerous. I cannot control the transformations, and I have trouble controlling my temper too. Although I know quite a few men who are no werewolves, yet act as beasts.

A witch told me there is no cure. I am to remain a werewolf for the rest of my days - and I am immortal. Nearly. A werewolf can be slain only with a silver weapon, and even then it's not enough - the curse has to be lifted, and then I shall die as a man. I need to find a witcher.

Geralt looked up at the werewolf who was still not attacking.

"You are no beast, I won't slay you," he said.

"You must," the werewolf managed to speak. His voice was hoarse but Geralt could easily understand him. The werewolf howled and a wolf pack assembled outside the cavern, looking in. A large wolf stepped forward, sniffing the air, looking at Geralt. Their eyes met.

Geralt dropped his swords to the ground.

"I will not slay you or your wolves," he repeated, now looking at the werewolf. "But I can lift your curse."

That wasn't what the werewolf wanted to hear. He growled, and the wolves behind him growled too, but didn't step forward. The werewolf tensed, ready to attack.

"All right then, come on!" Geralt bared his teeth and the wolves backed off. He threw off his jerkin that was only restraining his movements. Fire was playing in his hand.

The large wolf howled, and the others joined in. The moon was shining bright when a black werewolf faced a white one.

...

"The witch was right from the start," Dorian lay on the ground, transformed back into a man. "Someone had to take my curse from me. And you did." Geralt was sitting next to Dorian, watching his claws shrink back to human nails. "You are a werewolf now, and I am a man again. Thank you, witcher." He smiled with sadness. "I am sorry."

A raven flew into the cavern, landing on Geralt's shoulder. Its sharp claws punctured the skin, but Geralt didn't flinch.

"I didn't become a werewolf tonight," Geralt smirked. "I am a witcher. We are immune to such things. Your witch had it wrong."

"But your claws? Your fangs? You transformed!" Dorian didn't give up. "I wasn't fighting a man just now!"

"Oh, I get that a lot," Geralt laughed. "A mutant. A freak. A non-human. And those are the nice terms. I am a witcher, I am immune to disease, I cannot catch lycanthropy." The raven squeezed its claws, drawing a few drops of blood from Geralt's shoulder. "What?" He squinted at it. "Yeah, I know, he's right. Claws, fangs... Did I really have fangs?" The raven was watching him with one eye, as birds do. "Claws and fangs are not enough to make a werewolf," he concluded firmly, now talking to Dorian again. "I don't know what happened there. I fought you with magic, that's all. I dropped my swords so as not to kill you."

"The witch was right all along," Dorian repeated. "You are a Prime."

Geralt didn't understand what that meant, but Dorian was already asleep, exhausted after the fight and subsequent transformation. The wolves howled one more time and left. Geralt dropped to his knees and resumed his meditation.

27 Second Seed, 4E195 - Returning memories

Returning to Loc Muinne city, Geralt got caught up in various aspects of royal intrigue again. However, his choices were easy: he helped Vernon track down and free the little girl who was the sole surviving heir of late king of Temeria. Surprisingly, the other kings accepted her as the legitimate heir. Of course, she was too young to rule, but the youngest of the kings offered Vernon to protect the girl and make her his wife when she was old enough... thus securing himself a reign over Temeria from that point forward. Vernon sighed, but he was out of options - the country needed a king.

All that running around took quite a bit of time, and the peace summit started before Geralt was able to as much as inquire about Triss, let alone go searching for her. Vernon was watching him with a slight worry and a good deal of surprise, but didn't comment. Geralt noticed, but was grateful to his friend for his discretion. Truth be told, he could not explain to himself why he decided to abandon the search for Triss. He simply did what felt right.

At the summit it became obvious that the kings were not the only powerful figures present. A group of sorceresses known as The Lodge was seeking to control "the balance of power", or to put simply, they sought the power to appoint kings, having been behind the recent wave of regicide. The names of the sorceresses were read out: Triss and Sile were among them. Suddenly Triss' behaviour in spying on Sile started to make sense.

The kings were not thrilled to hear the news, however. They banned sorcerers and sorceresses of all kinds, condemning the members of The Lodge to burn at the stake. They had to catch them first, of course, as most of them were not present at the summit. A ban on all magic was thus brought on, and every mage present was executed, along with any herbalists and healers, for good measure. Dark times descended upon the Northern Realms.

But Geralt wasn't done yet. The one person he wanted to find in the burning ruined city, was Letho. That proved easier than he had thought: Letho was waiting for him in the central square, and Triss was with him. Geralt and Vernon approached.

"You took your time getting here," Letho smirked. "You had me take care of your woman again."

"Again?" Geralt squinted. "Oh."

Triss was covered in smudges of blood, but it wasn't her own. She looked tired but otherwise unharmed. But more than anything, she looked crestfallen.

"Geralt..." she started, but Geralt shook his head.

"Not now, Triss." He looked at her without resentment, but also without affection - her charm had worn off. "Letho and I have things to talk about."

"We'll wait for you by the city gates," Vernon pulled on Triss' sleeve. She sighed but followed.

When they were finally alone, Letho looked Geralt in the eye.

"What do you want to do, Geralt? Are you of a mind to kill me? I won't go soft on you this time."

"Got any vodka left in that bottle?" Geralt smiled, and Letho knew that there would be no fight. Geralt wanted to talk. "My memory is not fully recovered yet," he started slowly. "I remember how we met, but not how we parted. Did we ever catch up with the Wild Hunt? Did we rescue Yennefer? Was I involved with her? Tell me."

"Well..." Letho started cautiously. "We did catch up with the Wild Hunt... because I knew where to catch them. I think the witcher School of the Viper had been set up specifically to fight the Wild Hunt. The documents in our archives... you would not believe. Of course, our school had long perished, like most other witcher schools, but as long as at least one of us still lives... You know. We keep going."

Letho was talking, slowly building a picture of the long and arduous chase after the Wild Hunt. Geralt wondered whether Letho was trying to jog his memory... then suddenly he remembered.

They did catch up with the Wild Hunt on several occasions. A cavalcade of wraiths across the sky, freezing everything on the ground. But some of those wraiths could be slain with a sword, they bled and fell - they were of flesh and blood. Elves, but not like the elves in Geralt's world. Tall, powerful, superior. These were very different elves indeed. "They came from another realm," Geralt realised. "They kidnapped people to use as slaves, no doubt."

"They had a particular interest in Yennefer," Letho continued. "One of them said as much."

"Why?"

"No idea. But then they saw you."

"And?"

"You don't remember?"

Another wave of memories washed over Geralt. The elf from the Wild Hunt said with disdain that he would drop that female any moment in exchange for the White Wolf. And Geralt did not hesitate, taking Yennefer's place.

"And this is how you lost your memory," Letho resumed his story. "You remember it now? I thought as much."

"What happened to Yennefer?"

"They dropped her, literally. Exactly as he said. She was very weak, she had complete amnesia, like you six months ago. We picked her up from the ground and nursed her back to health." He paused, watching Geralt take it all in. "She is trouble, that woman. Don't know what you see in her, but there is no accounting for taste. She's got a temper, oh boy! It must have been worse because she was so confused... She'd lost herself... Well, you know how it feels. She did calm down a bit after a while."

"Then what? Where is she now?"

"Then we got caught by the Nilfgaardian Secret Police, taken to Nilfgaard, interrogated - politely, mind - and released. The Emperor made me an offer: slay a few kings in the North, and he would rebuild the School of the Viper... The one thing I could never turn down."

"Aha..." Geralt was sceptical about trusting kings and emperors, but something in Letho's tone made him keep his remarks to himself. "Where is Yennefer now?"

"She was in Nilfgaard when we were caught. I haven't seen her since."

They sat in silence for a while, drinking vodka.

"You didn't answer my question," Geralt resumed. "Was I involved with Yennefer?"

"You still don't know?" Letho smirked. "When you died at Blaviken, she gave her life for yours. Somehow she didn't die and the two of you were whisked away... where to? I forget."

"The Isle of Avalon."

"By what force?"

"I do not remember."

"All right," Letho did not insist. "And then Yennefer gets kidnapped by the Wild Hunt, only because you fought too fiercely, they did not manage to get you. You start your pursuit."

"Months and months later I came across the three of you, three witchers fighting a manticore," Geralt nodded.

"Dying to a manticore," Letho corrected him. "Without you, we would have been dead. We were chasing the Wild Hunt as well, for months and months and months..."

"Together we caught it, because you knew where they'd be," Geralt was remembering more and more details. "One of the fights was exceptionally fierce... yes... one of the wraiths... well, he wasn't a wraith, it was armour. He took off his helm - I remember his face! An elf." Geralt paused. "I went with them, so they would release Yennefer. That I remember. From that point on, everything is blank."

"That's because they wiped your memory," Letho nodded. "Drink."

They drank in silence.

"How long?"

"Five years."

"What?!"

"Five years you spent with them," Letho looked somber. "Then... someone dropped you off at Kaer Morhen."

"What?!" Geralt was shocked. "Who?"

"Think."

Letho wasn't going to make it easy, that much was clear. There seemed to be another important person in Geralt's life, someone whom he so far could not remember... And then it came to him.

"Ciri."

"Who?"

"My ward." Geralt paused. "The daughter of the Emperor of Nilfgaard. She... she's got powers. She is of Elder Blood, she is not quite of this world... a bloodline on her mother's side... In a way, she is like the elves in the Wild Hunt."

"Aha..." It was now Letho's turn to sit and listen.

"So, Blaviken... That was... what..? six years ago?" Geralt looked up and Letho nodded. "She was but a child then. I remember. She must be all grown up now."

"Do you think or do you remember that it was Ciri who dropped you off at Kaer Morhen?" Letho squinted.

"I... both." Geralt said firmly. "Not sure. But it is the only explanation."

"Aha..."

"All right, but what then?" Geralt still had gaps in his memory. "Where did Triss come from?"

"Beats me, I wasn't there," Letho shrugged. "But she claims she nursed you back to health at Kaer Morhen... and never let go of you since."

"Hmm... Is that why you said you saved my woman again?" Geralt squinted.

"Isn't it so?"

"No," Geralt shook his head. "My woman is in Nilfgaard. And that's where I'm going."

"I had a feeling Triss was dreading the moment your memory came back."

The bottle of vodka was nearly empty.

"Time to go, Letho," Geralt got up. "No hard feelings. Perhaps we'll meet again."

"Who knows what the future holds." Letho got up too. "But if I may... as an old friend. Don't rush to Nilfgaard. Your memory still has gaps. Go to Kaer Morhen. You are lucky to have your home still mostly intact... not like mine. Go there, spend time with your brothers... if anyone is still minding that place."

"Vesemir should be there at least," Geralt nodded. "He's like a father to us, youngsters... He's pushing three hundred by now. Retired from the Path, but he'll still whip your ass better than anyone, if need be."

"See? You're lucky," Letho said whistfully. "I have no home to return to... I doubt the Emperor will keep his word..."

...

Geralt and Letho parted ways. Geralt took a slow walk through the ruined city of Loc Muinne, now filled with fresh corpses, already arranged on pyres. Even though the place was a ruin, no one needed an epidemic. "They will practically set the city on fire," Geralt reflected, seeing just how many pyres had been prepared. "Wouldn't be the first time."

His mind was on fire too. He was remembering more and more details now. His feelings were confused... he recalled that it had never been plain sailing with Yennefer. They'd known each other for twenty years, they'd argued about everything, they'd split up more times than he could remember, but never for long. They'd always find each other again. And then - Blaviken. "She's got a temper, oh yes," Geralt smirked. "She's got a sharp tongue and she is trouble... She's a sorceress, they are often like that. And she's all I've ever wanted." He climbed to the top of a tower overlooking Loc Muinne. The view was majestic. Burned and ruined and littered with corpses, the ancient elven city still inspired awe. "There's something to say for elves..." Below, by the city gate, he spotted Vernon and Triss waiting for him. "There's Triss... Not just a young sorceress but a member of The Lodge that sought to control the kings... yet she never mentioned that little detail," he thought with resentment. "'There must have been a reason why you didn't get help' - that's what Sila had said about my memory," Geralt recalled. "Oh yes, I can see the reason now. Sweet, tender Triss... half a year of amnesia that could have been avoided."

Geralt didn't hurry, he even considered meditating to calm his inner turmoil, but then he thought of Vernon and didn't want to keep him waiting. "Letho was right - I should return to Kaer Morhen," he thought. "I am not going to sort it all out here and now."

He descended from the tower and walked towards the city gates, then the three of them walked out. They would follow the mountain path together, then go their separate ways. They walked in silence as everything had already been said before.

15-18 Last Seed, 4E202 - Mages Guild - The Old Crow Inn - Corthio---- Arch Mage Traven, exposed as a living lich! 👻



This is true. With mods (or just pure imagination) deciding to make a change about the whole Ban on Necromancy is certainly up for grabs, pertaining to the decision of the new Arch Mage.



At first I thought this was due to the year 202, and no Mysticsm in Skyrim. But as seen, this school is connected to necromancy, somehow. I did not know that. Well, with Soul Trap the connection is obvious...

Interesting she turns down the upgrade toward Arch Mage. I agree. Seems silly we can become the top of the Mages Guild (or College in Skyrim) even with hardly any magic involvement during quests. At least in Skyrim we have to cast a spell just to get into the College in the first place, of course.

This Corthio quest sounds awesome. So Lena tracks the guy down to a shop in the I.C., enters the shop via spell, and now she's confronted by the guy who rented her Corthio's former cellar in the Old Crow Inn!

Is there something which adds this stuff into your world? I'm assuming not any of the Better Cities cluster[CENSORED] of plug-ins, which I'm pretty sure you do not use.

http://chorrol.com/forums/index.php?s=&...st&p=338947

No Better Cities for me, thanks. I don't find that an improvement at all. Cortio's story comes from The Old Crow Inn which adds an inn and a few other things, a lovely mod and a permanent addition to my game!

Yikes! Easy there! Wasn't suggesting you should find BC an improvement, just curious what you've got there, is all.

Sorry if it came over rather strong, didn't mean it that way. I generally find it rather... umm... presumptious... when people call their mod "Better Whatever" because whether it's better or not is a matter of opinion... as is the case with Better Cities.

Yeah I apoligize too. Miscommunication, I guess. The internet sucks sometimes for communication.

13 Sun's Height, 4E195 - White Orchard

The Castle of Kaer Morhen was the seat of the Witcher School of the Wolf, Geralt's home of a lifetime. Even amnesia induced by the Wild Hunt could not erase its memory. It was therefore only logical that Geralt should return there once his amnesia was mostly cleared and the events of the past six months or so presented themselves in a very different light. Events and people, too. Geralt had to get his head in order first and foremost.

Kaer Morhen was almost deserted. Like all other witcher schools, the School of the Wolf had been decimated during the past couple of centuries, with no young witchers being trained since Geralt was a boy. Indeed, he was one of the last children to be trained by the school. The castle felt somewhat hollow without the young voices, but witchers still returned home for the winter, but their numbers dwindled with each passing year. Although long lived, witchers were by no means immortal. In the year of our story, only a handful of them remained, and most were scattered too far to return. Besides, it was summer, and most witchers were on the Path anyway, with only Vesemir remaining at Kaer Morhen. He was already nearly three hundred years of age and was starting to feel old. He preferred to retire from monster slaying and to take up masonry instead - the castle was getting old too, and someone had to mind it.

It had been just a few weeks since Geralt's arrival, but the mountain air had already restored his memory fully. He was thinking of setting out for Nilfgaard in search of Yennefer, when a letter from her arrived. It was a short and terse note asking Geralt to travel to Vizima, now the seat of the Emperor of Nilfgaard. Yennefer was there and had something important to discuss. She made no allusions to the past, and Geralt knew that something very serious was indeed going on. He was leaving immediately, and Vesemir insisted on accompanying him.

"If this is the Wild Hunt, you don't want to be alone," he reasoned, and Geralt agreed.

They rode to the village that Yennefer named in her letter, but she was no longer there. Instead, the place had been frozen - an unmistakable sign of a visit of the Wild Hunt. On top of that, the land was torn by the war, as the Nilfgaardian troops marched through, then stalled. It was hard to say which brought more devastation - the war or the Wild Hunt.

"But Yennefer escaped, look here," Geralt picked up a crystal skull of a raven - a remnant of one of Yennefer's spells. "These horse tracks... She rode at full gallop in that direction," he pointed out a path. They followed, they couldn't be too far behind.

...

White Orchard was a small village at a crossroads, and Geralt and Vesemir decided to stop there and ask around. Especially since they ran into a griffin along the way and Vesemir got a nasty cut on the shoulder, although he dismissed it as "barely grazed". Still, it needed cleaning, and so they headed to the inn. Vesemir settled down with some rye whiskey, but Geralt went to look and ask around.

He'd been gone for a day or more, but Vesemir wasn't worried. "Probably found himself a wraith to fight or something, let's hope he's getting paid," he shook his head, calling for more rye.

A young woman in a traveling cloak walked into the inn. She looked around, then asked for food and drink - it was a common thing to do and no one spared her more than a passing glance. Picking up her teapot and mug, she walked over to the back corner where Vesemir was nursing his wound.

"May I squeeze my teapot in between your bottles?" She smiled at him. "Do you mind if I join you?"

"By all means, please do!" Vesemir looked surprised, at least at first sight. "Let me make some room here..." He tossed empty bottles under the table. "Passing through? Or just sightseeing? White Orchard is beautiful this time of year, especially with the modern gallows-themed decorations. The things young people get up to these days..." He joked, watching her sit down and pour a cup of tea.

"I... I'm not sure," she mused. "It depends on what I'll find." She took off her traveling cloak revealing a peculiar sand-coloured robe underneath with a wide leather belt around her waist with pouches and bottles on it. "I am a healer," she offered. "I have a practice in Flotsam. I am... err... here to restock some herbs," she concluded brightly. "White Orchard is beautiful this time of year, just as you say."

"I see," Vesemir nodded, stretched for another bottle and winced with pain.

"That wound needs cleaning," the young healer pointed at Vesemir's shoulder. "Or it will fester. Unless it started to fester already. Take off your armour," she added firmly, fumbling with the bottles on her belt.

"Whoa! Settle down, settle down!" Vesemir laughed. "I've lived long enough, young lady, to handle grazes like that without a healer! I'd rather spend my coin on the rye!" He added, signalling the innkeeper who was just setting a filled plate in front of the young woman. Then, when the innkeeper had walked away, he said quietly: "He's around, don't worry."

"You figured out who I am then?" The young woman looked up from her food. "I didn't lie."

"I know," Vesemir nodded. "But healers don't usually carry swords and throwing knives under their robes," he smirked. "Besides, Wolf told me about you."

"Ah," Lena nodded too. "I thought he might have done. So, where is he?"

"Around here somewhere," Vesemir shrugged. "Making enquiries. Fighting monsters, no doubt. Nothing unusual. Why do you worry?"

"My medallion," Lena pulled a wolf medallion from under her robe. "It's been buzzing like mad for a few days already, which is why I came. There was talk of two witchers searching the battlefields for something, traveling in this direction. Two witchers traveling together - that's highly unusual. You got yourselves noticed. Flotsam is only a few miles away."

"Yennefer had sent a letter asking to meet her quite urgently in one of the villages that had since been ravaged by the war," Vesemir said grimly. "It is not just because she wants to see him... which I am not sure if she does... but that's his affair. Something big is up."

"The Wild Hunt," Lena said softly.

"Most likely," Vesemir agreed. "We tracked her down to around here, but she hadn't been to this village. So Geralt's been asking around to see if we can pick up her trail again." He took a sip of his whiskey. "While I get patched up here. I'm getting old, you know." He looked her over, searching. "Whose medallion is it?"

"Fredrik's," Lena tucked it under her robe again. "He... I was not able to save him," she looked away. "His wounds were too great."

"So... this is how you know so much about witchers and their wounds," Vesemir squeezed his shoulder again. "Perhaps I should have it cleaned, after all. Is that Swallow?" He picked up one of the potion bottles that Lena was diligently setting out before him. "That'll do."

"No, that won't do," the young healer stood up. "That is just a temporary relief. Take off your armour."

"Like brother, like sister," Vesemir smirked, obeying. "Stubborn."

...

With Vesemir's wound cleaned and bandaged, Lena tucked the remaining potion bottles back into her belt and turned to leave.

"You're better off waiting for him here," Vesemir tried to reason with her. "He'll be back, eventually."

But she had made up her mind and would not be talked out of it.

The night had already fallen when Lena left the inn, trying to sense somehow which way Geralt might have gone. His horse wasn't at the stables, so he must have been further afield which made the search all the more difficult. "Perhaps there's a notice board in the village," she remembered Geralt's habit of following up on requests from notice boards. "It's worth a look."

There was a request for a new plough, an order from the local garrison to enlist into the army, a plea for some rat poison, a call on all able-bodied men to go out into the battlefields to bury the dead, another plea to deal with a ghost by the well, and a polite request to help find a missing brother among the many fallen soldiers of the most recent battle. "The last two," Lena decided. "First the well, then the battlefield."

She found the well surrounded by burned down houses; the hovel had been evidently abandoned for many years. Fresh footprints were all around the well, some fresh scorch marks too. "He was here, fought the ghost or wraith by the looks of things," Lena decided. "He prepared this skeleton for burial, but hasn't done it yet. Perhaps he's missing something. He must have gone on to the battlefields next."

She mounted her horse and rode to the field of the most recent battle. It took place just a few days ago, the corpses were still fresh, with crows picking at them. It was already dawning. Low fog hung over the field, hiding blood and corpses from view. All was quiet.

Then Lena heard noises in the distance, at the far edge of the field. She saw fire lighting up through the fog, flashes of it, not a steady light - someone was casting spells. She unsheathed her sword and moved cautiously in that direction, expecting ghouls to surprise her as she advanced. She found ghouls, but they were dead - sliced in two with a powerful swing of a longsword, a witcher's sword. She knew who was the witcher.

The fire stopped flashing and the noises subsided, the fight seemed to be over. Lena was still moving in the same direction but without the flashes she wasn't sure it was right - she couldn't see more than an arm's length in the fog. Then a sizeable explosion shook the ground to her left and various ghoul body parts rained all around her. "You filth," she heard swearing nearby. "That nest is done now." She found her witcher.

The sun was already above the horizon but the air was still grey, although the fog was slowly lifting. A campfire sprung up a little further on, there was less fog there. "A clearing," Lena thought. "Slightly higher than the field. He's there." She sheathed her sword and ran towards the fire.

Geralt didn't like to meditate among dead bodies, in particular dead monsters - the stench was offending his senses. He always preferred to build a campfire a stretch away and on a higher ground, if possible. When Lena finally got to him, he had already dropped to his knees and closed his eyes, settling in to rest and recover. His wounds would close on their own, he had no energy left to tend to them just then.

Lena picked a potion from her belt and poured the contents into his mouth.

"Hello, sis," he smiled but didn't open his eyes.

Lena sat down too, suddenly realising just how tired she was, having been on her feet all night. She could sleep now, the place was quiet, with no people or monsters in sight. Her medallion stopped buzzing.

16 Sun's Height, 4E195 - The sorceress from Vengerberg

"Mistress Vengerberg rode to Vizima," the commander of the occupying forces in White Orchard finally told Geralt, but only after Geralt took care of a griffin and a number of stray drowners around the village. "And yes, I could have told you this when you first asked. But would you have dealt with the griffin if I did?" He looked at Geralt shrewdly. One could not argue with that.

Shaking his head and cursing slightly, Geralt rode back to the village to tell Vesemir that Yennefer had been just a few miles away all this time. The village was filled with people however - a dozen of the Emperor's elite guard were crowding the streets. "What in blazes is going on..?" Geralt didn't like elite guard, besides they seemed to be gathering around the inn, around Vesemir...

"What..?" Geralt started saying, hearing them asking for a witcher. Then a voice he hadn't heard in a long time sent a jolt through his body.

"Hello, Geralt. It's been a while." Yennefer stepped forward and the Emperor's elite guard closed behind her.

...

Yennefer was terse, terser than usual. She asked to delay a proper conversation until they were in Vizima, they had to hurry, she said, and the urgency of her voice made both Geralt and Vesemir fear for the worst.

"Go, go," Vesemir patted Geralt on the back. "I'll return to Kaer Morhen, they are not after me, they are after you. I don't think Yennefer is bluffing."

She wasn't. As soon as they were out of the village, the Wild Hunt decended upon them, and it became painfully clear what the Emperor's elite guard was for. The Emperor wanted both the sorceress and the witcher alive, even at the cost of the guard. They escaped, but all of the guard had perished.

The audience with the Emperor was brief and to the point. He wanted Geralt to find his daughter Cirilla who was also Geralt's ward. How that came to be was an old story, but the fact remained that she wasn't raised at the royal palace but at Kaer Morhen, the only child in a destituted witcher school. Vesemir was the one who actually looked after her most of the time, but Geralt as well as a few other witchers came by regularly as well. However, when Ciri was in her early teens, things changed. Ciri wasn't just an Emperor's daughter, she was also of the Elder Blood through her mother's side - she was not quite of this world. Someone "on the other side" noticed her existance and couldn't permit it, and they tried to reach her through the fabric of space... And that had everything to do with the Wild Hunt.

Although what exactly happened remained a mystery, the danger that Ciri was in, was plain to see. It was then that she decided to leave - to leave this world for another. It wasn't about death, it was about traveling through space into another world. The problem was however, that the Wild Hunt could do it too.

Geralt hadn't seen Ciri since then. Yet she must have been keeping an eye on things because when he died - or nearly died - at Blaviken, it was Ciri who pulled him and Yennefer from there to the Isle of Avalon, and years later it was again Ciri who pulled Geralt from the Wild Hunt, dropping him at Kaer Morhen, alive but without his memory. After that Ciri vanished again. But it seems she didn't go far, because she returned, she was back in their world, and the Emperor wanted her found.

"Why now?" Geralt squinted at the Emperor. "You never cared to show your paternal feelings before."

"It isn't about feelings," the Emperor replied quite dispassionately, not offended by the question. "It is a matter of state. Cirilla has come of age."

Indeed, she was no longer a child. She must have been about twenty already, Geralt figured. All grown up.

"Ciri needs to be found for her own sake, you know," Yennefer was filling in the details for Geralt. She had been looking for Ciri on the orders of the Emperor for months already, she made some progress, but her magic was leaving traces which was what brought the Wild Hunt after her. "I cannot use advanced magic any longer, it will alert the Wild Hunt and all will be lost," she shook her head. "We have to switch to conventional methods, which is much more your area of expertise than mine," she smiled, and Geralt thought that perhaps they could finally have a private conversation.

"You look wonderful," he said. "I missed you."

"They why did you not contact me in all this time?" Yennefer asked sharply.

"I... no, why were you staying away?" Geralt didn't expect that pang of hurt in Yennefer's tone.

"I heard you and Triss made a lovely couple," she definitely sounded hurt. "I didn't want to interfere."

"I lost my memory..." he started saying, but Yennefer cut him off.

"And it made you realise how much you love me, etcetera, etcetera, I do not wish to hear it, Geralt!" She cried out. Then added in a calmer tone: "Perhaps we can talk about it later."

Geralt was watching her thinking that she must be really hurt. Perhaps she just needed some time to heal, now that he separated from Triss. Indeed, perhaps they could talk later.

"We have to part again, my friend," Yennefer regained her composure and assumed a friendly tone. "I shall go to the Skellige Isles to investigate an unusual magic explosion there - I think it may have to do with Ciri, while you start your search in Velen as we discussed. Come and find me when you have some leads. Do you want me to teleport you?" She smiled, although she knew what the answer would be.

"No teleports, thanks!" Geralt shook his head. "I'll go on horseback."

"Very well, then we'll talk later," Yennefer nodded, kissed him, and before he could recover from his surprise, she opened a portal to the Skellige Isles and stepped through it.

"We'll talk later," Geralt repeated after her. There was hope yet.

...

In preparation for his search for Ciri, Geralt collected a number of reports from the Emperor's spies - Ciri had indeed been spotted, and that was where the Velen lead came from. But Velen was quite a large province, and Geralt needed more details. While going through all that paperwork, he came across an old book by Dandelion telling the story of how he and Yennefer had met some twenty years earlier. And here it is.

It all began when Geralt and I were feeling a bit peckish and, unburdened by heavy coin pouches, decided to fish our supper out of a lake. No bites were to be had, but we did not leave empty-handed - my hook snagged quite a lovely little pot. Oblivious to my friend's warnings, I opened it - and in doing so freed a powerful djinn.

Without giving it much thought I set about proclaiming my wishes. Before I could get to three, however, the djinn - irritated, I see now in hindsight, at being issued demands so soon after waking - began to throttle me. Geralt was able to drive him off, but I was left in a sorry state. I acted, the witcher told me later, as though under the influence of some curse. Clearly, the help of an expert in the magic arcana would be needed.

It was our good fortune that Yennefer of Vengerberg happened to be staying in a nearby village. Geralt went to her to ask that she heal his best friend, who happened also to be the brightest star in the North's poetic firmament. Yennefer, however, was more interested in the djinn (which she wanted to trap into magic servitude) than in its victim, and, it should be said, played the witcher like a well-strung mandolin. Yet rather than grow angry at being used in such a calculating manner, he fell white head over muddy boots in love with her.

What happened then... well, I won't go into details, suffice to say that Yennefer's plans hardly delighted the djinn, and without its cooperation she proved unable to tame it. The sorceress would surely have met a tragic end - and taken all of Rinde along with her - had Geralt not rushed to her rescue. For once, he did not need to draw either of his blades: to send the djinn packing, he had but to pronounce the third and final wish. He could have asked for anything: wealth, fame, power... but instead he asked the djinn to bind his fate to that of the arrogant yet intriguing sorceress from Vengerberg.

She's headed back to Skyrim. Back to Falkreath. Yeah, this thing with her father must be weighing her mind.

Ha! The new DB sanctuary's got a pool. 💦 It's pretty cool, all that detail about how things changed in the Brotherhood, and Lena's learning about it all now.

Okay, wow. Lucien does not approve of torture, interesting. He's more interested in doing things clean, and without much fuss. Like an assassin.

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That sounds like trouble ahead, to me. Imagine the constant "wear a coat it's cold outside", "be careful with that sword, it's sharp", "did you remember your potions", on and on and on, never ending.

That would be awful, but that's not Yennefer's style. She may be arrogant and willful, but she is no mother hen. It appears that their frequent quarrels and falling out where rather due to Yennefer being at least as stubborn as Geralt and wanting to do things her way, while Geralt, being very similar, disagreed, because obviously his way's the right one... Hmm.

I was thinking of the djinn being the harpy trying to keep the willful and arrogant in-line and safe thus ensuring its safety. Unless of course the djinn likes constant danger then he might constantly encourage constant rash behavior. It's one way the djinn can get out of the bind it's in.