The Path: A witcher's tale

Chapter 23

     After Pawel had completed the training we could give him, Karadine and I decided that it was high time we got a bit of rest ourselves and headed far south towards Toussaint. Along the way, we made a few stops to get more coin by taking up small contracts here and there, but there was this one job that was offered by this Redanian scholar in Oxenfurt. Karadine and I saw the notice and reported to the man's house. He was clearly wealthy, given how he had a rather extensive collection of books and tomes, sets of what appeared to be witcher gear, and quite a few expensive-looking paintings. The scholar himself was a rather eccentric man, he wore curious crystal spectacles and a robe that showed a little too much of his character.
     When we told him that we came for the notice that a monster needed to be slain, he jumped up and said "Ah, you're here about that, of course. There's just this nest of what appears to be drowners lurking around the sewers under the Oxenfurt academy, see to it that these will not be a pain in my arse for much longer." "Alright, but I'm a little confused, why the hell would what seems like a wealthy scholar care about a nest of ploughin' drowners in the sewers," I asked him. "Because I'm a patron of the arts and sciences and that's all you need to know," he tactfully replied. Right before we set off,  he said "Where are my manners, my name is Stobray, I'm a collector of Vedyminaica, anything that has to do with you witchers, if you would be so gracious to comply, I have a few questions I would like to ask you when you return." "Alright, that all depends on what you ask, we'll see you in a few hours," I said as Karadine and I left his house.
     Once we entered the sewers, I started missing hunting beasts out in the open, in the sewers, it was dark, cramped, and it stank. Karadine and I both took a dose of Cat, making our eyes glow and enabling us to see crystal clear in the dark sewer passageways. We explored the sewers and did encounter a drowner here and there, but nothing suggesting there was nest nearby. Then we saw the main quarry, it was a damn Zeugul, it was probably living there for decades, feeding off sewage and drowners. It's fish-like head and various tentacles protruded out of the murky water intimidatingly.
     I was waist deep in sewage and Karadine was almost up to her chest, so agility wasn't going to be of much use. A massive tentacle races towards me and I dodged quickly out of the way and severed it with a few well-aimed strikes. Karadine went straight for the head, she waded past the arms of the Zeugul, as I was taking the hits and severing arms as I went. Karadine climbed on top of the head of the monster, stabbed it with her silver sword and tossed a bomb right down it's dreadful mouth. With one graceful leap, she jumped off the monster and I sheathed my silver and caught her. We both turned away right before we stopped hearing the hiss of the bomb fuse and started hearing flesh and blood flying overhead. We waded out of the sewage and got onto the solid stone path on the side of the large chamber. We were both bruised and covered in monster blood and sewage. We cleaned up best we could and walked out of the sewers and towards Stobray's house.
     He looked at us and nearly messed his trousers. Because of the potions, our eyes were still glowing, our pupils were still dilated, and our skin was covered in veins. Stobray offered us a bath before questioning us about what went down in the sewers. Karadine and I entered the room and started disrobing, she did catch me admiring her "charms" a few times and once we were done there, we went to see what Stobray wanted to ask.
     We approached him and he asked the usual question, what the fuck was it that needed to be killed? We both told him in unison that it was a Zeugul. He then proceeded to give us a full round of questions on our mutations, he asked if we could control things like the amount of adrenaline we secreted and the size of our pupils, the usual stuff. Then, he asked something that made me want to run my steel right through him, he asked Karadine for a full physical examination. Luckily, I didn't need my steel, Karadine gave him a disgusted look and casted Aard on his bollocks right there. We had already gotten our coin, so I spit on him and we left.
     We walked towards our horses when I decided to ask Karadine something. "Hey, if I wasn't there, and he looked better, would you have accepted his offer," I asked. Karadine then replied coyly, "Maybe, after all, I do need to know what a normal man looks like and how they perform, if they're just as good as you. Also, I know what you did with Anna in Kovir, I'll put it aside, but only because she's a sorceress and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that she used a spell on you." "Fair enough," I laughed, "but I want you to know, I wouldn't give you up for the world." She looked back at me and said "I feel the same way Andrezej, now, let's go to Toussaint, I need some Everluce, not this cheap roadside booze." "As you wish," I said as we got on our horses and rode south towards Toussaint.