The Path: A witcher's tale

Chapter 5

Returning back to my roots, back to my home, back to good old Kaer Morhen. On the way to the fortress, I passed by the grave of the most long-lived witcher from the school of the wolf, Vesemir. The old witcher lived around few centuries and continued on the Path well into his golden years, he plied the trade until he died defending Kaer Morhen from a spectral phenomena known as the Wild Hunt. I paid my respects and continued to the main courtyard. As I got to the portcullis to enter, I passed the old moat, strewn about with the bones of witchers who fell during the infamous massacre at Kaer Morhen, the empty eye sockets of their skulls stared plainly at the empty sky. When I got inside the castle, I saw good old Marçin, a witcher who was with me through every single trial, his brown hair and relatively unscathed face was a welcome sight. We exchanged greetings and I asked him where the hell old man Eskel and that tough son of a wench, Ajax were. Marçin told me that Eskel was probably meditating in his quarters and Ajax was hunting a wyvern that was a pain in our asses for a while. I set off to hunt down Ajax and when I caught up to him, he was already standing over the wyvern's corpse. He hadn't heard me yet, so I asked "Tough hunt?" The poor bastard nearly jumped out of his skin and replied "You could've killed me! Good to see you haven't changed Andrezej." Ajax, a larger, more muscular witcher, with a scar along his forehead barely covered by his flaxen hair, extended his meaty hand in a greeting. He had told me the wyvern was one tough flying son of a bitch, it continued to elude him but it finally slipped up. I asked if he aimed to stuff it and put it above the mantle, he said it wasn't a bad idea, but he wanted to do an autopsy, to try to figure out what made this draconid so different. After examination, it just turned out that it was older and more experienced than most other wyverns. We decided to do a race back to Kaer Morhen, I ended up winning, we got back to Marçin's little laboratory to see what that mad scientist managed to concoct. We got to the table where we once all are ate our meals together when we were training and we started drinking. One sip of what Marçin brewed and I recoiled saying, "Damn, ain't that a kick in the liver, what the hell did you cook up Marçin?" He said it was an old booze recipe called "the gauntlet" affectionately named after our daunting witcher obstacle course, made up of equal parts spirit and White Gull, a mild witcher hallilucinogen. Old man Eskel came and decided to drink with us, after all, we were the only witchers who decided to winter at Kaer Morhen this year, the others either died, couldn't come, or didn't want to come, the keep didn't exactly bring back happy memories for every witcher who was made there. We swapped stories, I told them about the contract on the Bruxa in Novigrad, they said they heard about it, but decided it was just some peasant drivel. Marçin told us about the time he hunted down a forktail in Zerrikania. It's a miracle he was able to kill one without angering anyone, creatures like that are often held in high regard in Zerrikania. Never been there myself but I've heard it's full of wonders like dragons and such, I also know that there's a witcher school stationed there, the school of the manticore, a witcher school that specializes in alchemy. Ajax however, told us that the place where money's to be made is Kovir, he said he killed a nightwraith terrorizing the manor of a noble and got paid 350 crowns, a decent price for this type of quarry. Eskel, who was still hunting beasts, told us about his most recent contract on a slyzard in Cintra. This is an impressive kill, slyzards are draconids that have venomous bites and the ability to breathe fire, so they aren't exactly the typical quarry for a contract. We laughed and decided to do a small gwent tournament among the four of us, I started off playing Marçin and won. Then I played Eskel after he beat Ajax, I ended up winning the tournament. Eskel asked me how the hell I managed to build such a good deck. I simply replied that I've traveled a lot and managed to amass quite a collection of cards. Now that I said I traveled, I piqued their curiosity, they asked if it was for love, the bastards. Eskel said his famous phrase "I'm a simple witcher wolf, don't fraternize with kings, don't kill dragons, and don't sleep with sorceresses." I cleared up the confusion by stating that I was after a war criminal to help them out and see if they're innocent, I wasn't chasing after a sorceress or some woman. They always did say that I tended to be the moralistic type of witcher, much like that of a master witcher, now living in Toussaint, named Geralt. We continued to swap stories and reminisce on the past until we decided to call it a night. I retreated to my quarters, set down my silver sword, Bloede Bleidd, next to my steel and thought about what was going to happen next. The rest of the winter was much like this until I decided I was Skellige bound once the snows melted away.