Geralt's Arc

Chapter 1 of 17

Geralt had killed monsters for thirty years, and now he could barely find one. He stood at the edge of the market, one hand resting on the wolf medallion at his throat. The Continent had run dry of true beasts. Farmers hired him to poison rats. But a rumor had followed him for weeks, passed from drunk to drunk: one real monster still lived, the last of its kind. He meant to hunt it. He only needed a name and a place, and no one would give him either. The market swallowed him. Stalls crowded every side, hung with blades, dented armor, jars of salted meat. Merchants shouted prices over one another. Geralt moved through the noise like a stone in a river. Men stepped aside from his two swords and his slit yellow eyes. He asked a weapons seller about the beast. The man spat and turned away. He asked an armorer. She shook her head and found somewhere else to look. By the supply carts, an old spice trader finally leaned close. "You want the last monster, witcher, you want the woman who studies them. Rain. A sorceress." He wiped his hands on his apron. "She keeps a room above the tavern near here. But she doesn't help hunters. Killed the last one she met with a word." Geralt paid for the tip with a coin and a nod. He left the market and found the tavern easily, a weathered two-story house with a painted sign over the door. Warmth and pipe smoke rolled out as he entered. Men played dice by the fire. A serving girl pointed him up the stairs before he asked, as if she wanted him gone from the room. He knocked once. The door opened on its own. A woman sat at a table stacked with open books and dried plants. She did not rise. She was pinning a purple flower sprig to a page, and she finished the pin before she looked at him. Her eyes moved over his swords, then his medallion, then his face. "Wolf School," she said. "You've come a long way to be turned around, witcher. I don't guide killers to the things I love." "I'm not asking you to love it," Geralt said. "I'm asking where it is." "The last of anything deserves better than a blade." "It's killed people. That's why they sent me." He stayed in the doorway. "I don't enjoy this work. I choose the smaller wound. Right now the beast is the larger one." Rain studied him for a long moment. Then she closed her book. "There's a dungeon carved into the mountain, half a day north. Old runes on the door. That's where it dens." She stood at last. "But I'm coming with you. I won't have you butcher what you don't understand." Geralt had wanted a name and a place. He had gotten both, and a keeper he never asked for. He nodded once and turned for the stairs.