The Path: A witcher's tale

Chapter 10

Right after a grueling contract on a hym, Marçin came to find me and Kardine to help him on a contract. After about 2 days, we geared up and got ready for the hunt, but then Marçin suggested I left Karadine here so she could rest up more. Despite the fact that I suspected something, we talked it over and she agreed to stay at the vineyard. Marçin and I got on our horses and I was told that was going on, he was to clear a crypt full of wraiths and barghests, a type of hellhound-like specter. While traveling, I asked why the hell I had to come alone. Marçin replied that he bit off more than he could chew and needed the help of another expert, one that he could trust. I understood because he did not know Karadine like I did and he didn't entirely trust her.
We arrived at the crypt and observed that there were some grave robbers lurking around that were causing trouble. I drew my steel sword and got to work, while Marçin was off looking for the specters. About 7 armed men came towards me, blades and crossbows out, so I ran in and my blade sang through the air. On the first swing I decapitated one of them and I whirled around to parry a sword that would have cut into my shoulder and incapacitated me. Shortly afterwards, I was hit by a crossbow bolt in my thigh. I dropped to my knee and rolled to sever the leg of another scumbag. While he bled to death, I used igni to set 3 aflame and axii to force them on each other, thus giving me some time to remove the bolt in my thigh. Once that was done, 3 bodies had hit the floor and I had two left to take care of. One was severely wounded with a gash severing their femoral artery and the other was trying to get away. I threw my sword at the one getting away and let the one on the floor die out.
I recovered my sword and went to find Marçin, it turns out the son of a wench had just been watching how I dispatched the threat of those men. He told me that he doubted my ability after traveling with another blade for quite a while. I made it clear that I could take care of myself and was only hunting with Karadine to help her make a name for herself and help her prove her innocence. He sarcastically agreed and said he wanted to see if I could still kill monsters like I used to. I accepted the challenge without a shadow of a doubt and decided to start the job.
We descended into the crypt and noticed wraiths galore, I had to stay at least 5 before I got to the main burial chamber. Once there, I was met by a plague maiden who had been summoning lesser wraiths and barghests to fight for her. I knew that if I cut the head off of the beast, it would die, so I fought my way to the powerful wraith. With barghests spewing a kind of spectral fire, I reached the problem, and although it did not want to fight, it would not hesitate to. The plague maiden turned immaterial and started speeding towards me. I tossed a moon dust bomb and sent my silver right through the wraith, but that did not kill it. I had evaded swings and slashes from not only the plague maiden but the wraiths surrounding me. I had sent a well-aimed downward strike at the plague maiden's head and caused it to drop. However, unlike other monsters, wraiths burn away with a greenish-white flame when they die, they don't drop. I delivered the final strike straight through the wraith's ocular cavity while looking Marçin straight in the eye while I did so as the other lesser specters burned away.
The bastard looked at me with a kind of amazement and disbelief, as he couldn't even take on that many specters at once without a large injury, for one wraith had hit me with a light slash across my back. My immediate words were "And you thought I was going soft." Marçin gave the reply, "Clearly I was wrong, you still remain the best out of us three who trained at Kaer Morhen." Marçin went to collect the reward, which he gave to me for doing the job for him. We returned to the vineyard and saw that there was nobody awake this late at night.
We drank a celebratory round of beer and decided to chit chat. I asked Marçin what he had been doing in Toussaint, he said he was just wandering in search of work and he decided to visit me at my vineyard. The first thing Marçin told me he wanted to know was how my relationship with Karadine had been. I told the bastard that we're currently just work partners and I don't intend for it to escalate anytime soon. Marçin obviously didn't believe me, but we decided to leave that topic alone, when about 10 minutes later, Karadine had walked in on our post-hunt celebration.
Marçin said that it was time for him to go and that he'll see me at Kaer Morhen. On his way out I heard the cheeky bastard whisper to Karadine, "You got a real catch there," as he walked out. Once he was gone, Karadine asked what was the contract, I said that is was a simple extermination, nothing more. I also said that if she wanted the details, she could ask Marçin when we travel to Kaer Morhen in a couple weeks. As for right now, she had told me that she also had some work of her own while Marçin and I were gone. Apparently, there was a chort prowling the Gorgon foothills and she killed it with her school of the cat training and got a nice reward of about 400 crowns. I congratulated her on her kill and we rested up so we could look for work again tomorrow.