Braemar was a small farming village in the kingdom of Redania, and the residents there made a living off the local grain they grew for the domain. It held under a dozen homes for the farmers to live in along with their families, and a small inn where people would relax and drink when they had time.
Striding through the town was a young man riding on a young brown mare. He was a younger man nearing his early twenties, with hair black as a raven's coat that was slicked back to his neck. His skin was pale as an eggshell, his lower face dressed only by the hairs of a slowly growing short beard surrounding his thin lips and covering his high cheekbones and chiselled jawline. Though the most eye-catching thing about the rider was his eyes, they were slit like a cat and the colour of molten amber which seemed to give off an irradiating glow.
He wore a sleeveless forest green gambeson long coat with a long sleeve white shirt under it, a leather chest piece covering his upper torso, with a few leather straps tied around his waist which held a few pouches full of an assortment of potions and bombs. Green and brown leather padded trousers covered his lower regions, and a pair of leather gauntlets and boots sat at the end of his limbs. Just below his neck though lay a strange medallion, moulded from silver into the shape of a roaring bears head, with aquamarine gemstones for eyes.
He was armed as well. On his back rested two swords, one a fine steel blade with the pommel caved to resemble a bear similar to his medallion, and the other being silver with a V-shaped crossguard. Over his shoulder sat a handheld crossbow, while a small quiver of bolts rested at the back of his hip.
This wasn't just any man, but a Witcher of the Bear School.
Recently, The Witcher He received word that the farming village needed some help from some curse or monster. Crops have begun to rot and die along with animals both tamed and wild, along with other bad omens. It doesn't end there, as peasant children along the ages eight and younger have seemingly been scooped up and kidnapped from their families and have yet to show up in the passing days.
The Witcher had a few theories as to what may have caused this to happen, but his musings were cut short as he spotted the outline of the small village slowly closing in.
It was a simple village like many others he had seen. Under a dozen houses made from lumber and straw sat across from one another, and a collection of men and young boys could be seen working the small fields not too far away.
The Witcher rolled the rains of his horse, making the steed to pick up the pace a bit as he wanted to get the job done as soon as possible, small flocks of hens and goose making way as he struts into the village.
'The contract said to look for Ahab, one of the farmers possible,' He thought as he knew he'd have to ask around.
Strolling into the village, the Witcher spotted a man in front of a small house near the front of the village. The outside area was littered with some bits of smithing equipment, which included a small single man forge, an anvil, and a barrel filled with a variety of armaments.
"Excuse me," The Witcher called out as he approached the man, stopping his horse a few feet away from the fence that wrapped around the man's property, "You the blacksmith around here?"
"Aye, who are you, someone in need of a blade?" The blacksmith asked in a gruff voice.
"No, least not yet. I'm a Witcher who got word of job in this village, said to look for Ahab."
The blacksmith looked up from polishing the axe to see the man in front of him, medallion and eyes giving away who he was.
"Ah, a witcher are ye? Yeah, I know Ahab. Posted a job about our lil problem."
"Our?" The Witcher asked.
"That's right. This whole village is cursed, son. It was Ahab though who decided we put together some money to hire a Witcher. Though some weren't too happy with that, though some could go up and solve this problem by themselves, said they don't need a freak to do their dirty work. I mean no offence, of course."
"None taken," The Witcher said as he waved it off. He used to it worse comments, "But let me guess, a couple of men wanted to go up and investigate but haven't come back, that right?"
"Aye, one of the older boys, Bran his name was, wanted to go look for his brother who was taken. Haven't seen him in over a day now, probably captured like the rest. But anyway, you can find Ahab over by the inn near the entrance," The blacksmith said as he pointed to a building slightly more prominent than the rest of the village houses.
That wasn't good. Typical humans, peasants especially, were terrible candidates for hunting monsters. Rare few even had the strength, knowledge, or even equipment to also try to hold their own against a beast. From what the Witcher had to guess, this Bran sealed his fate the moment he stepped into those woods.
"Thanks for the info, perhaps later we could do business after I'm done with the job," The Witcher suggested, thinking about resupplying on gear after his quest.
"Hey, so long as you got the coin," The blacksmith replied.
The Witcher waved the man goodbye and headed over to the town to find Ahab. He saw the inn a couple of yards away as well as three men standing by the steps in conversation.
"Excuse me, any of you Ahab?"
The three men all turned to look at him, but two out of three of them looked at him in disgust.
"Ah, it's the mutant," One of the peasants, a balding man said in disgust.
"Yeah, you take this one Ahab, come back when he's off," the other peasant with grey hairs said as he spat in front of the Witcher's feet.
As the two other peasants left to go inside of the inn, they left only the Witcher and the last peasant, presumably Ahab, alone to do business. He was a skinny looking man, dressed in a worn-out blue tunic and brown trousers with a bowl haircut.
"So you're Ahab?" The Witcher asked.
"Aye, apologies for the other two. They're not exactly the most, well, welcoming of a sort," Ahab said, trying to be friendly and apologetic.
"It's alright; I'm pretty used to the whole freak show thing. But how about we skip all of that and get down to business. You posted a job request about some curse or monster that was harming your village, causing a few bad omens and taking your children, is that right?"
Ahab nodded his head in confirmation, his face displaying a bit of sadness as he began to explain to the Witcher the problem.
"It's terrible sir, began only a few weeks ago. Our crops began to rot faster than we could harvest them, our calves and birds die within days, and our children, my son included, are disappearing as if it was out of thin air!"
The Witcher held his chin as he listened to Ahab speak, taking in every detail and mentally jotting down notes to remember.
"Alright, and how exactly do your children go missing, were they indoors or go somewhere before disappearing?"
"The woods near here," Ahab said while pointing to the woods, "Sometimes before this all happened we would let the children play a bit while we work, climb trees and have a bit of fun, but never go too far in, don't want to lose sight of them."
"And let me guess, they go too far in, you can't see them, and they don't return?"
"Aye, never to be seen again. Please, sir, I'm begging you to find the children, especially my son!" Ahab concluded, begging the Witcher to put an end to this curse.
Possibly monster taking children from their homes for whatever reason, yep, sounded like a job for a Witcher indeed.
"Right, the job seems right up my ally, but before I take it, we need to discuss my payment."
Ahab nodded his head, expecting this to come up.
"Yes, of course, I understand you witchers can be a bit pricey. I'm looking to offer you three hundred crowns for completing the job. I Don't care how you do it, as long as you end this curse or whatever thing keeps taking our children."
The Witcher thought it over, and the price seemed pretty good. The man didn't look like he could offer that money all by himself either, probably took some help from the other villagers to put the money together to hire him.
"Alright, you've got a deal. I'll take the job."
Ahab clasped his hands and let out a breath he didn't know he was holding in, looking up at the Witcher with a smile on his face.
"Wonderful, thank you sir Witcher, thank you!"
"No problem, just doing my job. I should be finished by the end of the day. But in the meanwhile why don't you see if I could get a seat in the inn when I'm done, could go for a drink later."
He was a hungry man after all and could go for a nice meal after this is all over, provided they don't spit in his food as the last town did.
"Yes, of course. Gods be with you, Witcher," Ahab said, wishing the Witcher luck as he went off to join his friends inside.
With his business concluded for the man, for now, The Witcher turned around to begin his investigation.
'Okay, time to look for some clues,' He thought as he walked off towards the woods to begin his search.
Walking through the woods for a while, the Witcher eventually found what he was looking for, a set of small child tracks about a couple of days old in dried mud.
'There you are,' The Witcher thought to himself as he followed the tracks.
After following the children's tracks for a while, he eventually found a whole new set of tracks much older than that of a child, that looked to be that of an older person, probably female and humanoid. Judging by the lack of the child tracks, who or whatever took them must have knocked them out and carried them back to whatever lair or den they reside.
"Alright, now there isn't any sign of a struggle, nor any blood anywhere. Who or whatever took the children must have carried them from here to their lair judging from the lack of child tracks," The Witcher said to himself.
As the Witcher continued to follow the trail for over ten minutes, his enhanced smell caught a whiff of rotting and burnt flesh close by, another lead perhaps?
'Smells like rotting meat nearby, along with a cooked smokey scent,' He noted.
Following the scent, the Witcher found himself near an entrance to a cave and saw what looked like a person playing against the side of the rocks along with the opening. Looking again with his enhanced vision, he saw the person laying perfectly still.
'Looks like I found Bran,' The Witcher thought as he made his way over to the dead body.
When he was close enough, he was able to see the body of what remained of Bran. The upper half of his chest and face were scorched by, his face seemingly melted off to the point were bone and rotting muscle was visible, flies and other insects going at the free meal as they pleased. He knelt a bit and started to examine him a bit more to look for any leads of what he could be facing.
"Body's about a day old, no signs of heavy impacts but very intense burns," The Witcher mumbled to himself, "Looks like whatever I'm dealing with is capable of using fire, magic perhaps? Can't be an elemental, wouldn't go out in the open nor kidnap children, perhaps a crone or rogue witch?"
Looking past the dead body and towards the cave entrance, the Witcher stood up and walked over to the entry to go down and continue.
'Alright, looks like I'm going in.'
Walking into the dark cave was no problem for him, as his vision was enhanced to be able to see in dark environments, and if needed he could always pop a bit of Cat to get an even better view if things got too pitch black.
Continuing to dive deeper and deeper into the cave, the Witcher spotted what looked like a lite at the end of the tunnel and some room.
'Looks like someone's home,' He thought to himself as he slowed down a bit and sneaked forward.
He eventually made it over to the entrance of the large cavern and hid behind a rock large enough to with him so he wouldn't be visible to whoever was in here.
Looking over the rock, the Witcher got a good look of the room and saw a large room filled with candles and decorative totems. There were wooden tables littered with old books, notes and lab equipment that show recent use. There was also some old looking portal, currently deactivated, which looked old and covered in dust and cobwebs.
However, what caught the Witcher's eyes was what was off to the side of the room. There was a small pile of courses to the side, child corpses, all covered by a bloody sheet that shows both old and new stains. There was also a cauldron in the corner of the room over a fire, with bits of small limbs sticking in bloody puke green water.
'Well, looks like I found the children. Dammit, I was too late,' The Witcher cursed at seeing the dead children.
Looking towards the middle of the room, The Witcher caught the eyes of the culprit and his target, a witch, and by gods was she ugly.
She was a short, plump woman with dirty, thin grey hair, a single dark green eye, and one milky white eye. She had a very with wrinkled and dangly skin that was both bright pink and purple, full of warts, zits, and all other kinds of blemishes. Long dirty claws sat at the end of her toes and fingers, and her mouth had tiny yellow stained, cracked teeth, along with a very crooked jaw. She wore only a dirty and worn out robe the colour of puke that was tied along her thin waist by a leather belt decorated with fingers and toes, and two bracelets adorned just like the belt.
The witch was busy kneeling on the ground, dipping her fingers into a bowl of fresh blood and drawing some circle on the floor right in front of the portal door.
'Strange, never seen a magic circle like that before.'
As the witch seemingly finished drawing the circle, she let out a soft chuckle as she got up and crazily clapped her hands like it was a something to celebrate.
"Yes, yes! Finally, after all this time! Years of research and sacrifice will finally all be worth it!" The witch said to herself as she continued to paint, "Soon, soon I will be off this god's forsaken world and be sent to a land free of this world's prejudice, free of hiding in the dark like a common rat!"
'What's she planning, some ritual? Sounds like she's trying to open a portal, but where?' The Witcher asked himself as he continued to watch the witch.
The witch reached for the bowl to gather some more blood to continue to paint the circle, but as she reached over, she accidentally knocked it over and spilled the blood. Luckily for her, the blood didn't drop directly into the ring, leaving it intact.
"Ah, damn it all to hell! Now I'm going to need to go out and get more. Ah well, it's not all that bad, I remember a small blonde one who looked a bit alone the other day. Perhaps she could give me a bit more."
Deciding to act now, the Witcher agreed it would be best to make his presence known and put an end to this witches scheme.
"Sorry, but I can't let you do that," The Witcher said as he came out of his hiding spot, drawing his silver sword that glowed with red runes.
"What the, who are you!" The witch said, surprised by the sudden intrusion, "How dare you to step foot in here!"
"I've been hired by the villagers to hunt down the monster responsible for the bad omens and taking children, and by the looks of it, I just caught you red-handed, literally."
The witch snarled at the young man and then looked to see the bear medallion dangling from his neck and cat-like eyes.
"Oohhhh, a Witcher?" The witch asked with interest, examining the necklace, "Never encountered one of yee before, heard plenty about you mutants though."
"Then you should know why I'm here," The Witcher said, pointing his sword at her.
"Ahh, Plan to come and kill me and try to take my pretty little head back to get some bloody coin, aren't you? Gonna try and prick me with that fancy little piece of metal now huh?"
"Aye, that's the plan. Deserve it for what you did to those children you kidnapped and killed, a damned monster you are in my book," The Witcher said, getting into a stance.
"Well, good luck little man, yer gonna need it!" The witch yelled, a raging flame charged in her palm.
Without a second thought, the Witcher dodged out of the way as a bolt of fire flew past him and exploded onto the rock wall behind him.
The Witcher then charged forward and swung his sword at the witch. Her skin as thick and leathery though, as the Witcher swung his sword at her and cut through her shoulder a bit, but still doing a bit of damage as she yelled in pain.
"Arh, die you worm!"
The witch then charged bolts of fire in both her hands and launched them at the Witcher, who dodged away from the incoming spells by a hair. Deciding to fight fire with fire, he extended one of his hands out and created an Igni sign, causing embers to fly out and hit the witch, causing her skin to burn.
"AHHH, you fuck!" She cried, "When I get my hands on you-"
"You won't!"
The Witcher swung his sword, and the witch tried to bock it on instinct using her arm, which was sliced cleanly off and fell to the ground, causing her to scream in pain and furry. He then made another sign, Award, causing the witch to be blown back by a massive telekinetic blast and knock into the table behind her, causing mixtures of alchemic liquids and ingredients to be knocked off the table and flow towards the blood circle, causing it to glow.
"You... You... You dammed filthy fucking son a whore worm!" The Witcher yelled in a fury.
"Famous last words," The Witcher taunted, preparing to end the witch's life and take her head.
However, just as the Wither as about to chop off her head, a loud boom echoed through the cave, causing him and the witch to look back to see the magic circle now glowing bright gold, before suddenly the portal gate activated, creating a glowing golden vortex to appear.
"No, it cant be," The witch groaned, seeing the portal come to life.
The portal seemed to grow brighter and brighter, magical energy starting to radiate off of the stone gates like lighting. Suddenly it was like a raging hurricane was spurting from the vortex, sucking in everything not chained to the walls and floors. That included the Witcher, who found himself digging his heels into the storey in an attempt to avoid getting sucked in.
However, the floor was still wet with blood, and the Witcher lost his footing and was sucked into the portal, the last thing he heard was the echoing yells of a dying witch crushed under the stone of a collapsing cave.
When the light faded from the cave, the Witcher was there no more, and all that was left from the hag was nothing but a smoking pile of ash in the middle of a dirty cave that begun to collapse on itself.
[END]
{THIS CHAPTER HAS BEEN REVISED AS OF 06/23/2019}
