A Bond of Blood

[Aero Blue]

THE SORCERESS

---

An amber, more brown and bleak than vibrant orange, light shone upon Novigrad, coloring it in the hue of a Redanian autumn. The sun rose, albeit almost weary, like a sail drawn half-mast, some celestial dullard overlooking the Pontar Delta.

Those who called the Free City their home were ever lively, however, as befitting 'the North's finest city'. Fattened, adipose merchants and politicians flooded outwards from the myriad great banks - Vivaldi, Zammorto, Acquafresca - followed close behind by almost reverent dwarven financiers. Merchants peddled their wares, be it steel-forged blade or salted fish, through stall and wheelbarrow, while even the more languid folk raised their voices with fiery energy when set upon a bad turn of fortune in Gwent or Barrel.

Ever an integral part of the Free City, the shady folk, the con-men, and the disaffected roamed as well, wraiths and spectres, their forms concealed with flowing fabric cloaks and jerkins of dark leather. One 'Teleri Anest' counted herself amongst their number. Her silken garment had long since eroded into stringy fibers, the sleeves threatening to come apart from the rest of the bodice, while the white and black of her patterned trousers dulled, becoming a singular grey. She hid it all underneath a canvas of brown, barely tailored, almost formless.

She cast a final look at a particularly hard fought board of Gwent, before leaving the mercantile square at her back.

Her destination was the 'Steely Pike' - one of the city's many inns, located along the port, past the fisheries, past the flying sparks of the lazy-eyed armorer. She moved swiftly, clinging to the tips of shadows that other wanderers and travelling workers cast. The wretched men of the Eternal Fire would drag a suspicious man or woman, on their lonesome, away with nary a thought - best to appear as part of a group.

The Pike was seldom a bustling hub, though one or two drunkards were fond of compensating with the sound of their own raucous belching. Shadowy, questionable figures lounged in the corners, some playing away at card games with all the lively fervor of a drugged snail. Still, there were reasons for a lone sorceress to come to such a place.

"Luka, this place still smells of rot." An almost shrill-squeak sounded from Teleri's hood. She really would have to conceal her voice in the future. Some kind of glamour for the vocals, perhaps.

"Not so loud," came the darkly whispered reply of the stout barkeep, his unfortunate moustache, like a sliver of dried rat feces upon the upper lip, curling in annoyance. He spoke, unusually, with the verve of a scholar. "I am... fermenting fish and cabbage. And possibly also cutting corners with the drink, in highly questionable - foul-smelling - ways. Would you like anything?"

"To drink? Certainly not." She leaned in closer, almost immediately regretting it, for the foul smell near-doubled in intensity, and may have contributed to her anger, "I saw what you wrote on the notice board; I did not know you could write. Why did you not come to me first? I have barely eaten in days, you stupid fish-rotter!"

"I simply cannot come running to..." his moustache quivered before he spoke his next word, "sorceresses every time a problem arises. I am quite like to be burned alive for that. Besides, I already found someone for the job, someone who appears quite able - and it seems unlikely he would find the prospect of sharing the spoils agreeable. I am very, very sorry, but if you are hungry perhaps I could offer a heavy discount on some fermented fi."

"Luka… If you do not reveal to me what you revealed to him, I will inform all your patrons of your nefariously scented activities. Then I will curse certain choice parts of your body to shrivel. Forever."

And so, the innkeep with the unfortunate moustache began to spin a mighty tale...

 

[Nav]

THE WITCHER

---

A single golden leaf pirouetted down an invisible spiral of breeze, spinning through the air as it let itself be carried down. It shook slightly, as if it could have been whisked away any second by the grip of an icy wind, but it kept floating down the twirling course. It blew past his face and landed on the ground. The shiny, vibrant colour stood out against the ambers and bronzes of the mud and mire beneath it. Golden, cat-like eyes followed it all along, from the moment it shivered free of the branch above to the second it hit the mud path. Vezan's boot fell over it and crushed it into the sludge as he trotted on.

The city of Novigrad was a fine city, built with a panorama of the thick river cutting it into two. From the towers stood Witch Hunters and the Temple Guard, arrows and steel ready to fly, all watching the Witch trot mindfully. Steadfast walls loomed for defense defined by jealousy, greed, and love of power as much as honor, nobility, and loyalty.

Vezan continued his trot in silence through one of Novigrad's many streets, moving under the watchful eye of soldiers that curled their lips at him. Some spat, most just growled. He passed the greengrocer with the window full of apples and vegetables, the butcher with bloody lumps of meat on display and naked chickens strung up by their heads. His armour clicked with every movement, shiny in the mid-morning sun, but rusted in some places. There were cuts, scrapes, and dents from use, even the splattering of long-dried blood.

"Watch yourself, Witcher," a voice rung from the station of two Witch Hunters. The speaker scowled, revealing twisted teeth beneath his cleft lip.

"Yea, yea," Vezan replied, giving the man a flippant wave of his gloved hand to dismiss the conversation. "I ain't doing anything wrong." The words rolled off his tongue with a timbre of warmth, the barking sounds distinctly foreign.

The Witch Hunter's eyebrows rose up his forehead, flattening his nose further against the studded band bridging his face. "A whoresone Skelliger? N' a Witcher? N' here I thought a Witcher couldn't get any less inferior."

Vezan was several paces beyond the two soldiers, his swords swinging from the straps on his back. "Sorry, boys," he replied, calling back over his shoulder in a shout. "Mighta picked a fight with ya lads for that one any other time, but I got a job to do."

It'd been nearly a fortnight since Vezan took his last contract, but having spent his last Crown on a scrap of fish and a pint of rye the night before, he hadn't a choice. Novigrad, for all it was worth, didn't readily fling coin around, he found. Not with the Eternal Flame promising protection from all evils and monsters alike. The only contract he found was one he would never have taken on normal circumstances: a curse.

Witcher or not, dark magic always gave him the heebies. Alas, unsavory activity was a Witcher's life motto, and even dark magic would be better than swinging a sword hip-deep in sewers. He traversed to the far Eastern tip of Novigrad, where the moustached in-keep suggested the latest victim might be found. Wide roads gathered with tall buildings faded into narrow cow-paths overgrown with grass, where there were almost no people, and very few livestock.

The Witch Hunters tailed him. Their footsteps, even from a two-hundred yard distance, thundered in his ears as if they marched right alongside him.

The sour stench of sewer radiated from the tributary streams gossiping down the rocks nearby, nearly muting out the notes of decaying human flesh. Following his nose through the skirts of fallen leaves, weaving himself around denuded trees. The upper-half of poor lad's body, but a kid in age, was easy enough to find. The trail of blood left behind by whatever ripped his lower-half clean off at the waist was easier for a Witcher to follow than a child on the Trail of Sweets.

"Stupid bastard," Vezan muttered, ensuing the trail of blood. "I'll have you found and curse lifted before supper."

 

[Aero Blue]

THE SORCERESS

---

Teleri had fumed all the way from the Steely Pike to the Golden Sturgeon, and the myriad shops and bars that dotted the eastern districts of Novigrad. It was difficult enough for a 'witch' to make her way in the new world, without having one of her few sympathizers take their problems, and promise of pay, elsewhere. It struck her as betrayal, for surely Luka knew she required the coin. Without it, there was no food or drink, and no kind pauper willing to keep mum while she slept on quilts of their dirtied rags. Coin was survival, and right now, there was someone out there with her contract, threatening her livelihood.

She may not have known whoever this was, but she took it personally nonetheless.

The sorceress felt the dull onset of soreness in her calves as she walked, and the buildings turned to farmland. Wandering endlessly through streets and alleyways had strengthened her legs, though at times like these she yearned for the buttock-bruising prospect of horse-riding. There would be a fair bit more ways to go in her hunt, she knew, and tracking had never been a strong suit of hers. She would simply have to make do.

A wooden arc, eroded and chipped away by rain and the ceaseless galloping of horses and rolling of wheeled wagons, folded modestly over the streams. The sight of it brought a smile to Teleri's face. She approached the shallow stream from the side of the bridge, kneeling over the waters.

Her hands fumbled beneath the folds of her hefty cloak, retrieving a flask of carved, red wood. Little remained within the wooden vessel, and she could scarce remember what rested within - yet her smile brightened when she brought the flask to her nose; wine. She emptied the contents down her gullet, accepting even the powdery dregs of the poorly preserved liquid. Alas, the sadness when, finally, none remained.

Sighing, she submerged the flask within the open stream, and fished it back out with a flourish, half full, before bringing it to her bosom. From beneath the folds of her mottled cloak, the flask begin to shake as if possessed by an impetuous spirit, the vessel violently struggling against Teleri's grip. Her trained hands relented a smidge, without relinquishing her hold, allowing the flask to move, to point the way - the spell, in theory, would draw one towards other magics. Teleri Anest was no tracker, but she made do, and the Art of hydromancy agreed with her.

And so she walked, past foliage and tree, and walked, past stone and stream. She remained careful to conceal the flask, almost a rabid cub at her chest. In the distance, she had past by a pair of armed men, their folded hats identifying them as Witch Hunters, in service to the Eternal Flame. A coincidence, surely, that they were here.

She continued, tens - hundreds - of yards, losing track of how many minutes it must have been. A trail of blood dotted her path as she skipped her way across rock and fallen leaf.

The flask erupted, the violent water within erupting like a geyser. She had arrived, yet - from where she stood - she could not make out the presence of man nor monster.

 

[Nav]

THE WITCHER

---

The crunching of autumn leaves by light footsteps engulfed him, completely capturing his brain and rendering any logical thought or conclusion impossible. Each time he attempted to focus on the task at hand, the sound of those boots shot through his brain and grated his nerves. He ground his teeth and paused his step. His breathing caught in his chest, his heartbeat decelerated as he strained his ears to follow the sound. The approaching footsteps had the wet sound of water, someone who'd learned to walk quietly and relied on well-placed, spaced footfalls.

They were confident, too swift to be a peasant, but too light in their tread to be a monster or the Witch Hunters. The two soldiers tailing him were still a ways back, their breathing fatigued beneath the weight of their armaments. Whatever, or whoever, intruded upon him brought about some level of irritation bubbling just below skin. Vezan growled inwardly to himself; the tracks continuing to buzz in his ear like a fly he couldn't swat. Every step brought the noise closer, louder, and infuriated him to no end.

Exhaling again, he hastily pondered his options and decided it better to see what the creature was before jumping after it swords blazing. As satisfying as flinging steel at it might have been, Vezan was begrudgingly aware he wasn't at his best. He was hungry, first and foremost, and the deep wound laid into the back of his left shoulder by a Royal Griffin now a week past still ached with tender, baby flesh. Thinking of it drummed the dull ache, ripping through his shoulder joint like a lazy torturer who only applied enough pressure to be an aggravation.

"Damnit," he muttered. The person was close; he could hear the squeak of their boots and there weren't many places to hide. He really only had two options: up, or down. Down meant crouching in wet leaf litter, partially molded and damp with dew, so he chose up. In swift leaps, the Witcher hauled himself up on to the lowest branch of a tree and scuttled silently up to the far-reaching branches. His form hid partially behind golden leaves still clinging to boughs, but one ill-timed glance up would give him away.

The person, a woman, emerged and, squinting his eyes through the leaves, Vezan pieced out the image of her. A sorceresses—one he'd never met, but knew the face of. The mate at the Inn warned him a sorceress may eventually show up, except she came much sooner than he'd hoped, or anticipated.

Swinging down from the tree, Vezan landed before her with all the grace of a cat.

"You must be the sorceress I heard about," he said. Though he didn't reach for either sword, his fingers did a little wiggle at his side, uncertain whether to make her out as a friend or foe. In case of all the other sorceresses he met, he assumed she'd play the role of both depending on the moment. "Go home, miss. This job is taken."

In his books, sorceresses were meant to be frolicking through fields of Poppies and Wolfsbane, doing whatever little alakazam tricks they liked to do, hardly taking on Witcher contracts. It struck him as odd that she was out hunting after curses and monsters. She must have had it rough, but too bad, so sad, he needed to eat.

 

[Aero Blue]

THE SORCERESS

---

Teleri had nearly screamed when the man descended, as sudden as a noonwraith dematerializing and rematerializing. Over a hundred years of life, and the sudden movements of the quick were still a weakness of hers. She steeled her reddened features as best she could, though the quaking pulse of her chest may well have betrayed her surprise.

The man was a Witcher, and of that, Teleri had no doubt. The lithe, lean figure, and the myriad of blades could have cast him as any brash, youthful sellsword. The truth, however, lay in the hunter's eyes. Cat-like, piercing, as if blessed with an insight surpassing any known man. That much was fact, Teleri remembered, all too keenly aware of how dangerous one belonging to the monster-hunter order could truly be.

But then, she was no monster.

"And you must be the Witcher that I… also heard about." Teleri lied, inwardly cursing Luka. The barkeep had neglected to tell her of a Witcher. A blunt, condescending jackanapes of a Witcher at that. "I am no 'miss', Witcher. I am Teleri Anest of Toussaint, doubtlessly the finest sorceress still plying her trade in Novigrad - and I have a proposition for you."

She made to unravel her cloak from about herself, grunting in annoyance as the weighty fabric snagged about her underarm and back. She relented, settling for simply letting down her hood, revealing her immaculately straightened red hair, and the porcelain fullness of her face. "Monsters and curses may fall under your purview, Witcher, but my magics are stronger suited for the latter regard. We will deal with this matter together, and I will allow you to keep half of Luka's pay for your assistance."

The sorceress folded her arms, addressing the Witcher with a haughty sneer, "And afterwards, you will leave all jobs of magic to me. I have need of coin with which to eat, you know."

 

[Nav]

THE WITCHER

---

Vezan did something many Witchers never did: he smiled. Except, it wasn't a nice nor warm smile. Rather, the Cheshire smirk lit his face like a sallow candle in a dirty paper lamp. Instead of bringing relief to his demeanor, it brought something of wicked amusement. In what few wrinkles Vezan's face bore, not a single one of them was a laugh line, and his eyes remained unmoving and stoic, no matter what. His hands loosened at his sides though, going from twitching with readiness to still as he turned his back to the Sorceress to proceed with his work, like the interruption never happened at all.

Though he didn't appear to be listening to her, he always kept one ear diligently angled in her direction. If she went poking for some form of a response, the Witcher didn't readily give one. To her demands, he merely grunted. In his mind, she could go and demand whatever she pleased, but he didn't intend to follow them. He'd roam wherever he pleased, and he'd take any job he very well liked—a sorceress struggling to fight with her own cloak didn't faze him. Still, the annoyance surging through his chest for her was hard to battle.

More than anything, he wanted to swing around and tell her what was what, but he bit down on his tongue to fight the urge. She kept shoving on every mental nerve, his teeth gritted from effort to remain silent. His senses wavered in and out of attention and he wasn't getting any work done and he whirled around. Mouth ajar, about to unleash a piece of his mind on the sorceress, his stopped and not a squeak passed over his lips.

His brow furrowed; his mouth fell closed. Vezan tilted his head in both directions, straining for a sound. A cricket purred, the sorceress breathed, the soldiers marched… but he thought he heard… but he didn't need to hear the cracking of underbrush a second time, for the stench hit him in the nose and caused his face to scrunch.

"It's coming," he muttered. "Smell it?"

The stink was faint on the downward breeze, something reminiscent of bloated corpses floating down in a marsh after a few days of hot summer sun. Vezan snapped his hand back for the hilt of his silver sword. "Ain't got any clue what it is, either. You wanna split that reward? Help me break this curse, then."

 

[Aero Blue]

THE SORCERESS

---

To Teleri's great annoyance, the Witcher had simply smiled. A smile that failed to alight the eyes, a smile so isolated, that they creased not even the lines upon his face. There were words and phrases to describe those who smiled as such; heartless brigands, sociopaths born beneath the pale, icy moon. All the sorceress saw, however, as the Witcher's attentions drifted away from her, was someone unwilling to give her the respect she felt she deserved.

Finally, he spoke, and Teleri felt so relieved at the acknowledgment that the Witcher's tense, rigid form - and all its implications - escaped her.

"Smell what, exactly? I haven't a Witcher's nose, you kn-." She near-retched, barely suppressing the sickness that threatened to emerge with the advent of the putrid wind.

"Ah, yes," she spoke between hacking coughs, "Being mired in a stink like this, more your area of expertise, I imagine. Not that it affects the - eugh - arrangement; half for you, nothing mor-."

She screamed, as a figure erupted from the mire, the stink, and the foreboding shadows of the foliage. An emaciated creature, spindly and thin, hunched over so deeply that a vertebrae could be seen - like a fin - above its head. Its head was of mottled flesh, gaunt of skin and thin, chalk-white wisps of hair; all the features of an ancient, fragile man. It bound forth on stickly limbs, riddled with vestigial growths that seemed to lack rhyme or reason, thumbs on shoulders, useless wings on knees.

It approached.

 

[Nav]

THE WITCHER

---

The aroma required no mutations to smell. It was pungent with all the strength of a punch in the face and gut. Had he eaten a heavy meal anytime within the last hour, it might have even made his stomach a little squirrely. Though considering he hadn't but morsels in the last fortnight, his intestines endured unafflicted. If he heard the sorceress' hollowed threats, and he must have given his ears, he paid it no mind, for his arm was darting back and latching on to the hilt of his silver sword.

He swung it once, letting the balanced weight sink into his palms. Excitement bolted through him and amusement lanced the gleam in his eyes as he paused, silent, to wait. Every nerve on his skin's surface formed goose bumps. His hair stood up on end and he held his breath. His thoughts ran through his head a million kilometers a minute to identify the creature as he prowled through the brush. A rotfiend, perhaps? The smell matched. The clumsy tromping also fit.

At the ringing of the sorceress' scream, Vezan launched himself backwards a stride. The creature, emaciated, burst through the brush and bellowed, sending arcs of spit soaring through the air. A droplet of which landed square on Vezan's forehead, and burned something fierce. Without swiping it away, he paced in a crescent shape and kept his distance.

The beast, so thin its gut must have been tied to its spine, was unlike anything he'd ever seen before. Not even his studies of ancient and extinct species brought any propositions as to what the beast might be. It lumbered forward, though bipedal, seemed more an expert on four legs than two. It lurched forward, long fingernails brushing the grass.

"No idea what it is," Vezan admitted aloud, hanging his arm and sword at his side. "Doesn't seem particularly menacing though." Most creatures would have attacked by then, utilizing whatever skill or trait they possessed to cut a prey down—venom, claws, fangs… yet the unusual beast bumbled with drool dripping between its slightly parted jaws. "Gotta be a curse of some kind. Sorceress, know anything?"

Dropping some of his guard when his medallion refused to vibrate in its presence, Vezan stepped forward and lifted his sword to poke the creature in a half-hearted attempt to see if it would even be inflicted by silver.

When his sword grew close to its shoulder, the beast whirled and darted with breakneck speed, talons extended. Vezan grunted in surprise. He managed to swing around on agile feet, missing a blow directly to his chest by swinging leftward. Talons grazed his shoulder and split open his leather armor as though it was butter, piercing his skin and ripping a ribbon of blood.

"Fuck!" The cut burned.

Agitated, the beast gained momentum as it coiled back around, accelerating on all fours straight towards the sorceress.

 

[Aero Blue]

THE SORCERESS

---

The sounds of adrenaline resounded in Teleri's skull, like gouts of blood bounding from one temple to another. Over a hundred years of life, and a feeling this primal gripped her nonetheless. Her legs had felt almost numb, outside of her control, when she mirrored the Witcher's movements, circling the emaciated creature - albeit from a further distance away.

"Curses, curses, curses..." Teleri had responded, speaking words as they came into her mind, unparsed and unfiltered, a mired stream of thoughts, "Emaciated form - could be a transfiguration of the man's greed, or gluttony, desire… bent inwards... never seen a wretched thing quite like this…"

She had quieted and snapped to attention as the Witcher and the Creature had their exchange, the cursee propelled - unfathomably - by twig-like limbs that seemed to lack even the slightest muscles to tense, to flex, to exert with. For a brief moment, she had been entranced by the macabre efficiency of the two combatants alike - the practiced fluidity of the Witcher, the single-minded explosiveness of the monster.

Then it came upon her.

She spoke the words of Elder Speech with practiced brevity, although the words themselves felt unfluent, stilted, made rigid through rehearsal, "A'baeth gynvael!"

A vacuumous sputtering of air accompanied the words, not from the Sorceress, but from the emptiness between Teleri and beast. A single droplet of water engorged into a shimmering, translucent basin, that cast down a torrent upon the creature. An onslaught of water caught its midsection, shunting the leaping beast unto the grassy surface, before starting to crust and frost over into a murky-white binding of ice.

Already, subtle fissures formed over the surface of the ice, as the slender creature summoned some unholy vestiges of strength.

A distinct haughtiness returned to Teleri's voice as she once again assumed the common speech, tinged with tense anxiety, "Quickly, Witcher!; cut this wretched thing's tendo-."

The Sorceress felt a sudden cold upon her left breast and shoulder; she was bleeding. She stared aimlessly forward, swearing she could make out the fractal patterns of shattered ice-flakes falling towards the ground. Beautiful, she noted, before collapsing upon her knees.

The creature, still on all fours, had charged past her, leaving a trail of her blood and skin in its wake. It reared again, seeking to pounce upon the fallen Sorceress.

 

[Nav]

THE WITCHER

---

"Maybe, not really a good time to figure out what the curse means this instance," Vezan cried back as the sorceress philosophied the meaning of the beast's appearance. Curse or not, the scrawny, gangly creature was not something he wanted to spend a bunch of time trifling around with. It was abnormally agile and fast. Its form blurred when it moved, even with his expert eyes trailing it and it seemed entirely unperturbed by their weaponry. Most creatures made at least an effort to avoid his silver sword when possible, but when he swung his sword and grazed it across the beast's shoulder, opening up a decent gash, it seemed to feel no pain. It didn't even stumble off its path of lashing out at the sorceress.

The smell of the woman's blood hit his nose. Though she managed to push it off the path for a moment with powerful magic, it merely stumbled, dazed for a moment, and leapt right back into action. It smashed through its icy prison with unparalleled strength, and leapt again. Her urgent call drew him to circle around the beast as it shook itself loose, but he didn't manage to close in quick enough before it was back on the prowl. Too far out of the reach of his sword, and doubting the sorceress' ability to take another swing at the creature, Vezan resorted to the last option available to him.

Holding up his right hand, a blast of telekinetic thrust tossed the beast to the side, sending it rolling back. Its front talons dove into the dirt, preventing it from rolling back. Signs were never his strength or interest, but damn, they did come in handy sometimes.

The creature shook its head, which looked like molted skin drawn taut over its dog-like skull, something like a dried out chicken carcass. The wound on its shoulder already healed. Vezan levelled his sword, but before either could attack, both witcher and beast cocked their heads and glanced their eyes to the direction of an increasingly loud clinking noise.

The soldiers. Vezan gritted his teeth, eyes fluttering between the crest of the hill and the beast. The beast eyed both warily, backing a step before turning and bolting into the woods. Vezan bounded after it, getting four or five strides away before his heels dug into the ground and he stopped. The beast's footfalls became distant… silent.

"Damnit," he cursed and turned back to the sorceress, bending at the waist next to her to click his fingers in front of her face. "Come on, witch. Time to go. We gotta go now… wakey wakey, eggs n' bac-ey."

The first feathered crown of the witch hunters' helmets pierced the horizon behind the hill. The two men, clanking loudly in their heavy armor, drew their crossbows.

"What you two doin' there?" one called. "Don't move!"

 

[Aero Blue]

THE SORCERESS

---

Teleri shuddered as the lacerations began to take their toll, the veneer of numb giving way to the sensation of a cold burn, of frigid fire. Her left arm was good for little, and the creature had begun to bear down upon her, until the Witcher intervened with a mighty concussive force. There was a beauty in the simplicity of the Signs, the way Witchers wove blade and magic together, and a vague amusement in owing the cat-eyed man a life-debt.

Wound-drunk, the Sorceress processed the happenings as best she could; the beast had regenerative properties, more akin to, say, a werewolf or a vampire than, perhaps, a Drowner. It hearkened at the same sounds the Witcher did. A human reaction, perhaps? Or simply creature intuition? What a strange thing indeed...

Two snapping fingers yanked the Sorceress from her thoughts. "Wakey wakey…?; you dolt."

Dolt or no, 'eggs and bac'ey' or otherwise, it was too late; she could see the plumage of the Witch Hunters from over the horizon, could hear the loud clinks of their armor. She even chuckled at the sight of their crossbows; what a first reaction it was, to draw upon a wounded lady. The thought crossed her mind with some measure of amused disdain.

End of the road, perhaps. They would try her as a Witch - a lame-armed one, no less - and she would die, by fire, stake or stone. The Witcher too perhaps, despite all his order's policies of non-involvement, for some trumped-up charges of collusion. Such was their way.

She'd not let that happen, to have one come to harm on her account, by her folly - she was too prideful by far.

Teleri allowed herself to collapse over, feigning a sudden lapse in strength from blood loss. The Sorceress spoke, face pressed against the ground, counting on the Witcher's superior senses to receive her words, "My arm's for little more than swaying limply, and I was never particularly quick. I'll not escape here; tell them you apprehended me, cut me, while I was performing wicked magics, and they may yet let you off."

 

[Nav]

THE WITCHER

---

"Yea, you know those words well, don't you?" Vezan said, shooting his eyes upward and narrowing them as the plumage of helmets revealed the men beneath as they arced over the hill crest. The gleam of the crossbow arrows glinted tantalizingly in the low light, but the weight of the contraptions paired with the weight of their armor caused their arms to shiver, ever-so-slightly. The head of the arrows bobbed up and down an inch or so as they attempted to keep them steady. One was older, mature and experienced, but the other was much younger… a teen, at most, and Vezan could smell the nervous perspiration collecting in his armpits.

He had options. He might have even left her there for dead, skipping out on the whole situation before the Hunters even realized he was gone, had it not been for her selfless… and rather annoying… act of trying to help him. A certain, unusual anger flared in his chest; he wasn't a charity case, especially not to some Sorceress. For a split second, he still considered it. He could dump her there and leave, chase after the beast and collect the full reward at the end—no halfsies, no annoying Witcher Wanna-Bes to get in his way.

If only he didn't feel obligated to prove he didn't need her help. Vezan didn't ask for her sacrifice, and he certainly didn't want it.

"Get up, woman," he sneered below his breath. "I've never seen a sorceress stoop so low." Though, admittedly, he hadn't met many sorceresses, and that was by choice.

"What was that?" the older Witch Hunter barked. "Get her up! Drop your weaponry at once!"

"I said," Vezan began, clearing his throat and projecting his words. "You're aiming arrows at an innocent woman who was just attacked by a beast? Surely, you've seen the contract posted about town."

Vezan killed monsters. He wasn't the type to be charitable, or help those in need. Alas, aside from just having a point to prove, his thoughts wandered back to the beast in question. Ready to admit it or not, it was unlike anything he'd ever seen before—even with curses. A sorceress could prove handy, even if it meant having to split some of the contract payout. Jobs in the city proved slim at the moment, and it'd be a week's ride to anywhere else… at least… and there were no promise of jobs in other towns and hamlets, either. He didn't have the luxury to just bail and go on to the next.

 

[Aero Blue]

THE SORCERESS

---

Indignance welled up from within Teleri like some unholy inferno.

Here she was, bleeding profusely, at the mercy of the Eternal Flame, her offer of a sacrifice wholly disregarded - even lambasted. She became keenly aware of the thoughts that stirred in her mind, and also, perhaps worst of all, distressingly aware that they were far from altruistic; she felt impotent rage at the idea of being further indebted to the Witcher and his - as of yet - superior cunning, of being demeaned so callously without even an idle retort to offer in response.

"Is… is she quite alright?" The younger of the two Witch Hunters inquired, seemingly receptive to the Witcher's depiction of the events. Still, however, the crossbow remained in his grasp, its wooden make slicked over with the boy's sweat.

"Shut up, Addis!" The older Hunter interjected, mouth curling into a wretched scowl, his trained eyes remaining focused on the pair, "Forget your contracts, Witcher! We of the Eternal Flame are concerned with evils of a higher order; get her up!"

Teleri stirred from her position, pushing her hands off the ground to lift her torso, allowing her knees to rest upon the dirt.

And then, she allowed herself to go limp, falling once more with a rag-doll like finality.

The scowling Hunter spat into the dirt.

"If she passes before we question her, we won't get our due…" His words slowed, as if in deliberation. Still, his firm grip kept the crossbow steadily trained upon the Witcher, "Addis, go get her."

 

[Nav]

THE WITCHER

---

He could use a sign, Vezan thought, but his powers of persuasion may only convince a frog to hop or a chicken to cluck. Again, he reminded himself he had no due to the hurt sorceress. He'd warned her, hadn't he? He told her not to get involved in a Witcher's work, that she'd only end up hurt, and that was precisely how it happened. But again, the encroaching realization that he was no expert at curses crawled into his brain. The healing wound on the beast's shoulder, which only moment before had been nicked by his silver, flashed before his mind's eye. Vezan's life was made of marching in and killing things, but the Novigrad Beast seemed less willing to lay down and die than even the most persistent Specter.

The Sorceress could still prove useful.

Grinding his teeth, a grimace set into his features. His eyes darted to both sides, looking for a diversion of some sort, but finding none. He didn't care to kill the men—the School of Cat earned him enough of a reputation on its own, and he wasn't keen on following-up on that status. A growl rumbled through his throat as the younger of the two was directed forward. Driven by instinct, Vezan reached back over his shoulder and gripped the hilt of his sword.

"Back off, Addis."

His eloquence of word choice lacked, but the deepening rumble of his tone was enough to convey his seriousness. The Beast could have already had a kilometer or two of distance between them and the hunger gnawing in Vezan's stomach grew stronger at the thought. A Witcher might be able to go a long period without sustenance, but he was nearing the end of his rope, and he was growing more desperate by the moment. He'd cut down both Hunter boys if he had to.

"Come on, you whoreson" he nudged the corner of his boot on to the limp woman at his side. "Can't you do anything? Open a portal? Nothing?"

 

[Aero Blue]

THE SORCERESS

---

"Well?" Teleri heard the older of the hunters snarl, "You going to listen to a Witcher? Move forward!"

The sensation she felt was not a quality unique to either a Witcher or a Sorceress, just intuition in the midst of drawn weapons. Someone's death was imminent - the bubble fit to burst, fiery mountain yearning to erupt, as it were. Some rather indignant, and unreasonable, part of her wondered if it might not be the abrasive Witcher; 'whoreson' indeed.

"You… absolute prick... I'm bleeding," and for yet another moment added unto to her newly expansive list of insults and injuries, Teleri spoke into the dirt.

Still, the Witcher had his point; open a portal, indeed. It pricked the haughtiest parts of her; as if she could be expected to draw such vestiges of magic in her current state. As if the hunter wouldn't riddle her with bolts the moment she tried. Unless…

Remaining prostate, Teleri allowed her good arm - concealed by the folds of her hefty garb - to reach over towards her wound. One of the most difficult parts of hydromancy was working from nothing, of having to generate water from simple nothingness. 'Thankfully', the beast had provided a suitable enough substitute, courtesy of maw and claw.

'Come on, you whoreson. Come on, you whoreson. Come on, you whoreson.'

She clung to the phrase, letting it bound to and from the walls of her skull. Not for any magical reason; just because it infuriated her.

And in that fury, Teleri found the strength to rise. She forced herself upward with what strength she could muster from her torso. She cast her good arm outward, dollops of her own blood forced outwards. They congealed in front of her, like a small bubbling pouch.

The Hunter loosed a bolt of his crossbow, yelling in a mixture of disgust and fear.

The gurgling pouch of red expanded, almost like the splatter of a slaughtered man's blood upon a wall, until it became a shimmering, translucent oval. The bolt found its way into the red-sheen, and disappeared.

A portal.

 

[Nav]

THE WITCHER

---

Vezan cursed himself for the situation he put himself in. He was going to be forced to kill two young soldiers because he felt obligated to help a dying sorceress. The same sorceress he'd warned and tried to shoo away from his hunt. But oh no, she wouldn't go and now he was paying the price for it. A grunt expelled through his nose, his grip tightening on the hilt of his sword as he exposed the steel, levelling the blade with his chest into a daunting, unmoving horizon. The soldier's finger twitched on the cross bow trigger; Vezan bent his knees to a small degree and readied himself, his heart and mind sound and steady to bleed yet more blood onto the soil.

While the sorceress chanted an internal mantra, Vezan's mind was peacefully empty. A prickle of adrenaline drew the hairs along his arms to attention and a heat flashed down the length of his spine. His foot twitched, readying to spring, when the sorceress stood. He ignored the rustling sound of her rising, though it all happened so quick. His eyes became distracted, wandered towards what she was doing, just as he heard the cross bow ping and the arrow to fly.

It whistled through the air. Vezan snapped back, swinging his sword to deflect it, but his blade hit nothing but air. For, before him, a swirling mass of light and energy pulsed and consumed the arrow whole. A portal.

"Come on, witch bitch," he said. He sheathed his sword, grabbed Teleri by the wrist and dragged her forward as he leapt into the open gateway without hesitation.

Leaping through portals was like a hundred days of sickness compressed into only three seconds. Lightheadedness struck him as his stomach knotted and churned deep within. His muscles ached suddenly, and the pain in his wound amplified. The portal spat them out in a familiar spot, but several yards above the ground.

Vezan groaned as he was tossed unceremoniously through the air, crashing down and landing not on ground, not on cobblestone… but thatch. He thudded against the roof of the Blade and Shield tavern, set in the dead center of Novigrad proper. Groaning, he rolled on to his side, nearly tumbling off the roof as he did so.

"Look! Those people just dropped in from the sky!" the voice of a young boy cried out, and gasps of people followed thereafter.

"Fuck," Vezan groaned. "This is where you put a portal? Of all places, here?" He asked, sitting up and scrambling to his feet, wobbling as he looked down at the crowd that had gathered, calling attention to a nearby patrol. "We've company."

 

[Aero Blue]

THE SORCERESS

---

Teleri took to the portal with, perhaps, a bit more ease than her Witcher counterpart. The trick was release, the Sorceress had found, of giving in to the sensations of compression and decompression - in her woozy, bloodied state, 'giving in' came somewhat easily. As it were, a certain kind of 'laissez-faire' - whether derived from self-confidence or overall apathy - was required when it came to portals; there were harrowing stories of travellers that never emerged from the other side of the portal.

Surfacing on some thatch-roof in the center of Novigrad, Home of the Eternal Fire, Teleri Anest almost wished this had been the case.

She could have sworn she performed the spell properly, with all the requisite idealizations and imageries and rigid concentrations. The Sorceress had expected some serene field, some tranquil glade at which she could tend to her wounds, and then promptly bid the Witcher adieu. Instead, she could hear only the raucous cacophony of Novigrad working men, crowded alongside their women and children. She listened as their shock and surprise turned into fear and anger as they explained the unknown in the only way they knew how; Mages.

And they were right, which was doubly frustrating.

Triply frustrating, then, was the derision of the Witcher condensed into some base annoyance. It was almost too much.

"I am bleeding!" Teleri announced, for what had seemed like the umpteenth time; some part of her felt as if she deserved some modicum of sympathy, some degree of understanding for her various missteps.

She felt a sudden sting as some earthen material struck her nose and splat across her face, miring her visage with what felt like a wet mound of mud. Sympathy and understanding, it appeared, were not forthcoming.

"G-Good!" An emboldened merchant of pottery spat, his hands dripping with what was softened, unformed clay. "Fuh… fuck off Witch!"

Some parts of the crowd joined in with their scorn, vitriol amplified by the groupmind. Others, although Teleri gleamed no relief from it, were less inclined to follow suit - mothers shielding their children, young ones still enraptured by the awe of the mysterious portal, others still with no taste for the hatred of the masses. All the same, with the crowd, came the Eternal Fire. Mounted men; solemn, pinch-nosed warriors upon steeds draped with fiery red.

There would be no outrunning them, Teleri realized, and they were like to get picked off my crossbow bolts if they remained upon their perch. Her reserves and vestiges of energies were nigh empty, but perhaps one more spell. A simple one, more akin to the brief signs of a Witcher than any sophisticated magics.

Teleri, strangely, clicked her fingers and waved her hand, to almost no effect. "... prepare, Witcher." She struggled to speak the words.

Suddenly, the yelp of one of the witch hunters could be heard as the steed bucked its rider from off his saddle. Neighing furiously, it charged forth, parting the crowd of screaming Novagradians, galloping towards the spot of street below Witch and Witcher alike.

 

[Nav]

THE WITCHER

---

"Bleeding does not constitute an excuse for being shitty at the one thing you're supposed to be good at," Vezan fired back with a deep roar in the back of his throat. His eyes gleamed with a dangerous flicker, though whether that was unique to the situation, or a look he always wore, it was impossible to say. His lips pulled back into a grimace, perking his ears and taking too more seconds to draw in their surroundings. His eyes scanned for any sign of an exit—a break in the crowd, a roof near enough that it could be jumped to. The crowd below gathering added anxiety to the desperation search. Common peasants formed a crowd, armed with clubs, sticks, stones, and so forth. A few flourished swords and other deadly weapons, but the sound hoofbeats, heavy and laden with armor and men, carried things more deadly than the provincials below.

Then someone hurled a handful of mud. There was a crash of glass in the lower part of the house bellow. A volley of stones followed, smashing glass and raining down upon the pair and the building in a shower. Vezan grunted, shielding himself from a stone with a quick wave of Quen, but the rock hit with such force, the shield cracked with all the sound and display of the windows. All devolved in a matter of seconds, and during those seconds, the Witcher considered his remaining possibility: leave the sorceress behind and flee. There was a slight possibility he could fend against the peasantry, but why blunt a sword for the sake of a lbleeding sorceress, who landed him in the mess in the first place?

Edging towards the far end of the roof by backing up two small steps, he was on the verge of making his Robin Hood-esq escape when a pulse of magic caused him pause. His medallion rumbled against his chest. The metal heated as it shook, leaching warmth into his skin.

Another rock went whizzing by his head, just close enough that it might well have given him a haircut in the process. A second hurl of mud caused him to duck, narrowly avoiding a face full, but all went eerily quiet as the clanking of armor and horse's hooves drew closer, became louder. Crossbows and swords were drawn over the gleam of their armor, catching and reflecting any light as they wobbled with the movements of their horses.

"Prepare for what?" he called back, sending a nervous gaze to the soldiers that pummeled through the crowd, sending inattentive children scattering to the side when the chests of their steeds plowed by.

The thatch work crinkled below his boots, the wooden beams below threatening to lose their grip on the patchwork of water reeds and send them both crashing down into the house below. Meanwhile, the rattle of his medallion came to a head with a crash. The unmounted steed hurtled through the crowd. It stopped below the cleft of the roof, perching back on its back legs and throwing its weight back. Its front hooves lashed out at the crowd as it spun a tight circle, before landing back on all fours and dancing anxiously in place.

"Come on," Vezan said, reaching out to snatch Teleri's wrist and pull her towards the roof's edge. The horse had sent the crowd parting in chaos and confusion, and the sudden anxiousness of the one, sent the other soldier's steeds into flight. Soldiers worked to control their animals, spinning them in tight circles and bellowing 'whoooa, whoooa!'

Vezan's grip slid around Teleri's arm as his boots slid against the reeds, leading him to hop off and land with subtle grace on the ground. He snatched the horse's reins, settling it with a touch to its nose. "Get on the horse and go," he instructed without delay. It was time to dump the girl—dump her for good—and he'd be better off on his own. The Witch Hunters, once they controlled their mounts, would likely pursue her, anyways, and he could slip away scotch-free.

 

[Aero Blue]

THE SORCERESS

---

'Bleeding does not constitute an excuse for being shitty at the one thing you're supposed to be good at.'

The agony of the Witcher's words lay in how very true they were - her spilt blood perhaps diminished her, but it was time squandered that had made her lesser. She had once aspired to be a great mage, and the greatest mages - she knew - took the passage of time as an ally, bolstering their knowledge and expertise even as the world hunted them. Teleri knew this, and knew, intimately, her own shame in having failed in doing likewise. The running; the cowering; the fisstech.

Teleri felt the touch of the Witcher upon her wrist, her form acquiescing to his pull like a wisp in the wind. She basked in the sounds of panicked steeds, and the riders anxious to calm them; that, at least, had gone better than she expected. She felt herself land next to the Witcher on airy feet, a trick of sensation from a dazed mind; she had never been graceful, but there was a strange fluidity in lightheadedness.

"I had… I had thought... jump on the horse... a cavalier in the stories…" Ramblings fell from her mouth as she clambered unto the steed with feeble hands, making her way despite her weakness.

She could feel the hastened breath of the horse as she mounted it, could feel it begin to slow as if matching her own, could feel the slightest motion of the creature tenfold upon her own slender form. It felt unfamiliar, and her posture ,slumped over the back of the steed, was - in a word - 'deplorable'. It had been quite some time since she had rode, and part of her had expected the Witcher to handle that aspect of it.

Her head turned towards Vezan, her gaze, eyes narrowed in confusion, questioning and lingering. Something inside of her ached and swelled, some bubbling sensation, an alert desire - a want, a need - that threatened to burst through her feeble sloth.

For a moment, she wanted little more than to reach out towards the foul-mouthed Witcher.

The sounds of the Witch Hunters, control regained over their restless steeds, approached at last.

Against some unfathomable desire she railed, as she found herself rushing throughout Novigrad.

All the scents of dirt, of rot, of fish, of meats, of perfumed merchants, blended into one another until they were indistinguishable. And all their faces, frightened, angered, or blissfully ignorant, faded into the maelstrom.

Time, too, never her ally.

And she as well, the bloodied sorceress plunged into darkness.

 

[Nav]

THE WITCHER

---

Vezan did not get on the animal with her. The sooner he could unhook his little raft from her sinking war ship, the better off he'd be. She was the Mage Hunters' true target and if he could throw her off one way and dart off the other, he'd be able to walk away relatively unscathed to lick his unfortunate wounds from the encounter with the beast. It'd been a few months since he'd brewed anything, but with the increasing stiffness and pain in his joints, he figured he might have to make a pit-stop at an herbalist for some supplies.

Once the sorceress was on the horse, though in no elegant form, he smacked it against its rump and sent it scattering forward with a surprised nicker. Its hooves thundered off deeper into the city, growing quieter and quieter until even his sensitive ears couldn't hear it anymore. So loathing of the sorceress was everyone that they, too, watched her, the Hunters gathering to pursue her, and Vezan slipped off without a single notice from anyone—no one, except a child and two stray cats.

Once a ways away from the scene of the portal, Vezan slowed from a jog to a walk. His breath was harsh and irregular, strained under the weight of armor and the discomfort of wounds. Blood turned the hazelnut brown leather of his panoply near black. The stitching of which had been popped open on his one shoulder where deep, razor sharp talons had sliced through as if it had been made of butter. The steel plating across his breast dented from impact, and he couldn't help but brush his fingers over it several times in wonder.

He'd met plenty of large beasts that could dent steel with such ease, but that cursed, mange ridden thing barley looked strong enough to crawl over rocks, let alone make his reflexes look slow by comparison and dent his armor.

He needed to go back and find the beast anew, but first, he found the familiar old hut. It was a small shanty of a house crammed in between two much larger, and more elaborate buildings. To the left, a butcher's, and to the right, a book vendor. Vezan took the center door, which creaked on its hinges and, even when closed, let in a beam of sunlight from the top, for it sat askew in the frame.

"Strallac?" Vezan called in to the front room, which was nearly empty save for the single work bench in the far corner, against which was positioned a wooden stool. "I know you're here. You never leave."

"Is that you, Master Vezan? Back again?"

The warlock Strallac stood amid the shadows of the opposite doorway. From under his black hooded cloak, all that could be seen by the firelight was the silver of his long beard. Behind him was a cast a long, malevolent shadow that seemed to move independently of him as if it, too, was making its own incantation to the spirits.

"Yea, I need to lift some herbs off you, if you're still in the trade. Vezan gritted his teeth when a sudden pain began to creep up the length of his arm. The pain had an unpleasant warmth to it, eating at his stomach. There was nausea too, just enough to make him shake his head to try and clear it.

"You're cursed," Strallac mentioned off-handedly, lips coiling back so a flash of white teeth could be seen beneath. "Get out of my shoppe. I don't see to the cursed or the damned. Come back when you're free of it and we'll do business."

Vezan grunted, the pain becoming so intense sweat beaded his forehead. He stumbled back, shoving his shoulder into the door and fumbling into a crowd of moving people at the heart of Novigrad as he gripped his right hand with his left, whimpering out in the intensity. He forced his hand away, looking at the scorch mark that glowed in his palm.

"What do you mean I'm cursed? Cursed by what?" he yelled, snapping his head back towards the little shack, though the door was gone, as was the sorcerer's house.