A lone farmer's cart travelled on the old road to Blaviken along the river Buine, two horses tied behind it.

It was a clear, bitingly cold autumn morning. The night before had brought with it the first snow of the year, which now lay sprinkled over the landscape. Sporadic gusts of icy wind combed the frost-bitten plains that stretched for miles to the west. To the east, the river lazily meandered, forming a series of stagnant lakes. The sky looked impossibly azure in the crystal autumn air, and pale sunlight shimmered over the thin crust of ice covering the lakes' surface.

A flock of swans took to the air.

"Very pretty, the swans", the cart's owner turned towards his companion, а female half-elf smoking a thin pipe."It's them this place is named after: the Swan Swamps."
"The Swan Swamps? Does have a nice ring to it" the half-elf chuckled, exhaling a puff of smoke. "Although I must admit, Yaro, swans are only graceful while up in the air, or when swimming. They are far less impressive on dry land".

"Right you are, miss Mora" replied Yaro the farmer. "Why, they stumble around just like regular old geese, they do -" The wind picked up again and cut off the old man mid-sentence. The half-elf grasped the woolen shawl wrapped around her head with one hand, her other still holding the pipe.

"Where's our witcher gone off to?" Yaro asked when the wind had subsided. "Said he's gone to look for herbs, but what flowers is he hoping to find out in the swamps at this time of year? You know, miss Mora, in our village the other day, we all thought he was pretty spooky . You know, dragging that bloody griffin's head across the village square like ' twas just some chicken he's gonna make soup with .Walks all silently, big swords on his back, and got eyes like a cat and all that. But now that we's travelling together, all he does is wander 'round picking flowers all day, hasn't drawn his sword once"

"We've been lucky not to run into anything that would require him to do so," Mora's tone became slightly more serious, but she never expanded that thought. Instead she added, "He would also prefer it if you called those flowers 'potion ingredients'. Our dear witcher's always going on about how he doesn't need them to make daisy chains with. Although I do think a daisy chain would complement his complexion quite splendidly.
"But you are right, Yaro: flower-picking does take up a lot of Coen's day, perhaps even more so than drowner-slicing."

"Aye, miss, that's because the drowners only come out at night, he wouldn't be slicing them up during the day now, would he."

"You know your swamp monsters well, Yaro", the half-elf laughed.

"Not much else out here in the swamps, to tell ya straight. Travelling by oneself here is downright dull—Ah, there goes our witcher. Heya, master Coen!"

The witcher- a thin young man of barely twenty years- waved in acknowledgement. He proceeded to dump half a dozen bundles of flowery potion ingredients in the back of the cart. His horse, a large brown gelding tied to the back of the cart, nickered in greeting.

"You've got enough stuff in there to make healing potions for a whole village of witchers", the half-elf raised an eyebrow.

"Preparation is the witcher's best friend. An unprepared witcher is a dead witcher. And there's no coin in being a dead witcher" Coen shook his head.

"More of your uncle Vesemir's words of wisdom?"

"Aha"

"Fair enough", Mora shrugged. "Oh, are those arenaria leaves? Could really use some for my pipe weed, makes a great blend"

"Good thing I picked some extra then, don't want princess Mora to get her boots muddy…"

"Mm, precisely!" The half-elf nodded while stuffing her pipe. A thin blue flame then escaped her index finger and ignited the tobacco "You know, Coen, you'd make a great errand boy" she chuckled at the unimpressed witcher.

"Miss Mora, if I may interrupt", Yaro interrupted, "Master Coen makes a darn good witcher, and I don't see no reason for him to change occupations. Ain't no one in our village could kill that griffin that be eatin' all our cattle. Must 'ave been quite a fight, master Coen, something to tell them little witchers at witcher school about"

" Eh, wasn't exactly a breeze, but still a regular day's work for a witcher. "Like any monster, griffins have their weaknesses. A crossbow, the silver sword and the Aard sign are the witcher's best friends in this scenario", as stated in Brother Adalbert's Bestiary . Common knowledge for a witcher, really", Coen replied, attempting to sound nonchalant. Mora, having actually witnessed the fight in question, stifled a giggle. The young witcher would have found the fight a lot tougher without the Confusion spell she had used on that griffin.

"So witchers do a lot of reading then,"Yaro sounded intrigued, "Wouldn't have thunk so". He smiled at the idea of a library full of studious witchers existing somewhere in the mountains of Kaedwen.

The conversation was interrupted by Yaro's lazy old mare breaking into a trot, which caused a sudden jolt to the cart and its passengers. Coen's herbs, which he had been carefully arranging into bundles, were now strewn all over the cart's floor.

"Aye, my good old Anya knows the road well,"Yaro laughed, "You see those houses over yonder? That's Tandle-in-the-Swamps, a small village, but the innkeep's got some great ale. We'll should rest there for a bit, let my poor Anya get her strength back."

"What's that tower, just east of the village? Looks quite old" what Mora had called a tower could also have passed for an unusually tall pile of rocks or an old ruin.

"Why, I've never seen it before, miss Mora… Does look like it's been sitting there since the Convergence, but I swear, 'twas not there when I travelled this road during harvest not a month ago!"

"That's odd…", the witcher's yellow eyes were squinting, scanning the distance.

"Ya mean the tower, Master Coen?"

"No, I mean the village."

"Village was surely there when I last travelled through these parts, master witcher."

"There's no smoke coming from the chimneys," Mora explained. "Looks like nobody's home… or they all simultaneously ran out of firewood before the start of winter" her tone was dry. She gave the witcher a concerned look.
"Coen, maybe we should ride ahead, make sure everything's alright?" She had a strange feeling about this place. There was a faint tingle in the air, a whiff of the Power so slight that Coen's witcher medallion could not pick it up. Yaro was completely oblivious to it, and probably for the better. Many places had naturally high levels of the Power, such as those marked by standing stones, but this felt more controlled, like the aftermath of a spell. Combined with a tower that appeared out of nowhere, they could be in over their heads on this one.

"And leave me by myself?!" Yaro interjected, "What if what's happened to the village happens to me too? It's clear all's not alright!".

"We may be overreacting, Yaro, there could be a valid reason for those people to not start any fires..." the half elf did not sound convincing even to herself. Yaro had stopped the cart, and all three passengers looked at each other in uneasy silence. The witcher stood up, jumped onto the road and started untying his horse.

"Mora, stay with Yaro, " he instructed his companions, "I'll ride ahead."