Chapter one: To The Path

Jerome lied in wait, the muddy swamp waters up to his waist, his silver sword unsheathed and resting on his shoulders. He pushed some of the brush aside to gain a better look at the helpless squirrel he had hung on to a branch just low enough to break the surface of the water with every struggle to escape. Jerome was sorely impressed, it had almost been an hour and the little animal was still struggling as profusely as the moment the witcher had caught him.

'But I suppose all animals are like that when they know they are in danger.' Jerome thought to himself. 'Probably why they haven't poked their heads out of the water yet.'

Jerome wasn't the type to moan or complain about his lot in life. After all, his trade was in stark demand and as his masters had told him time and time again 'witchers, at least in the north, are respected members of society!'. Jerome, however, was yet to be received with praise or heraldry by the peasants he so often protected. Sometimes he thought it was his Ofieri heritage that put them off, after all, he must have been the only dark skinned man north of the Pontar river. But ever so often he would catch his reflection in a mirror or still water and realize that a witcher's cat like eyes must be just as frightening to them, if not more so. But neither of these factors made him lament a life he imagined having, were he was someone completely different, for him it was the little things that bothered him. Like in that very moment the swamp water had soaked through his leather pants and they began to chafe his groin.

Just as he was about to wade his way out of the water, to remove his britches, he heard the ever so slight bubbling of something exhaling under water. So instead he reached into his front pouch then pulled out a glass vial marked 'Owl' and drunk the viscous purple potion in one gulp. He grimaced as he tried to clear his throat as quietly as possible, but the painfully familiar burn that it left behind always made the initial moments of its effects very uncomfortable.

Just as a drowner sprung out of the water at the squirrel, Jerome leaped out of his hiding spot and with a well-positioned strike took the monsters head clean off. The strike was so well placed, it even cut the rope from which the squirrel dangled allowing the little animal to escape. Jerome took a moment to inspect his work. 'Defeated in one stroke, and the bait even got to escape. Didn't really need the potion after all.' He gloated to himself. He spotted the drowner's head bobbing not too far away from him and made his way to it. As he reached out to grasp it, a pale, webbed claw broke the stillness of the swamp surface, grabbed him by the wrist and his cat eyes widened before he was dragged under.

Struggling to get his arm free of the drowner he attempted to strike at it with his silver sword. But before he could manage a swing, another larger arm grabbed him from behind, pushing him deeper into the muck and driving a set of sharp teeth into his shoulder. Luckily for the witcher, the teeth weren't long enough to make its way passed his gambeson jacket. Unluckily for the witcher, the combined weight of the two drowners he now fought was going to keep him under water, however, he felt the potion induced burn finally reach his extremities and was ready to take the offensive.

He elbowed the smaller of the two getting his empty hand free, then quickly cast the sign for Aard. The telekinetic gust of wind sent both monsters flying to the swamp's shallows. After two deep breaths of air and a moment to wipe his mop of pitch black hair out of his face, he made his way to the bank where the monsters too were recuperating. The smaller of them had landed on some ground where the water was shallowest and already rose to its feet. The larger of the two was dazed, crawling on all fours attempting to get back into deeper waters. As Jerome neared the dazed drowner, the smaller of the two sprang to its aid. Jerome quickly made the sign for Igni and set the Jumping Monster ablaze in midair, sending it back into the shallow water in the feeble attempt to put itself out.

Jerome stood over the big drowner. It got up on its knees and tilted its scaly head back. The witcher stared into its big black eyes, empty and expressionless like most monsters were, then swung at it taking its head from its shoulders. He then turned and directed his attention toward the last one, it's smoldering ruins stemming above the water, it's disfigured extremities twitching slightly. Jerome placed his boot on the drowner's chest and swung his silver sword down on the monster's neck, it's blood and viscera spraying up onto Jerome's already ruined jacket.

Jerome collected the heads as proof of his work, dumped them in a rough spun burlap sack, and tied them to his saddle. As he got on his horse to ride off he noticed the squirrel, perched on the very branch from which the witcher had dangled him from, starring at him.

"What are you looking at? You weren't almost drowned."

An hours ride later, the witcher arrived at the village that hired him. Upon which he was greeted with the usual stern looks and hesitant nods. Upon reaching the alderman's house, Jerome unmounted. But before he could undo the sack containing the severed drowner heads the villager's leader stepped out of his hut to greet him.

"Back so soon Master witcher?" he shouted, purposefully loud, for the whole village to hear. "I suppose it was the right idea to call for a professional." The Alderman wasn't a particularly old man. This led Jerome to believe that he had not been Alderman for very long and there for had to boast about every achievement regardless of its significance.

"I'm not a Master, and you owe me ninety coppers." Jerome stated plainly, handing the village leader the red stained sack of heads.

The Alderman's smile turned into a frown at the sight of the sack. It might have been the sight of the sack of gore, or the smell of cadaver that wafted off of it and the witcher that made the old man's face turn sour. But Jerome suspected it had more to do with the mention of the price of his services.

The Aldermen babbled for a bit before hesitantly saying: "We agreed on thirty." In a much quieter voice.

"We agreed on thirty per head, regardless of size. I brought you three." Jerome explained just as plainly as he did before, jangling the bag of monster heads.

The Alderman's face turned red as he began to sweat, then bed the witcher to enter his hut. "Woman! Bring the Master witcher some ale! The dark kind if we have any!" he called out at his small timid wife as soon as he entered his home. He then quickly turned to the witcher, still passing the doorway. "You enjoy dark ale, don't you?"

Jerome raised an eyebrow at the Alderman's question. But was too tired to argue with him. "That would be nice, thank you." He answered. Jerome looked around the hut wondering where he could drop the bag.

"Please leave the… ah, trophies outside, Master witcher." The Aldermen sheepishly plead. Jerome nodded and dropped them before closing the door behind him. The Aldermen's hut, though larger than the others in the village, was modestly furnished with a bare wooden table and log stools surrounding it.

He then unbuckled his sword belt, leaned the sheathed weapon on the table corner, sat, waited for the tiny Aldermen's wife to pour his drink and took a long gulp of ale. 'I hate this part' Jerome thought to himself before inhaling deeply and attempting to speak.

"I can't pay you the whole sum." The Alderman quickly and directly stated, cutting Jerome off. "I asked you to kill the drowner who was terrorizing our village." Though they were in Alderman's home, he continued to speak in a hushed tone.

"And I told you drowners hunt in packs. If I left the other two alive, they would have killed more of your villagers." Jerome reminded him.

"Please Master witcher, I haven't the money." The Alderman continued to plead.

Jerome leaned back on his stool, as far back as he could without falling off, and sighed. "I can't accept a mere thirty coppers. The guild won't allow it." This was also true, however, witchers do more often than not haggle over the price of their crevices, but what worried Jerome was what his masters would say if he returned to the bastion with only a portion of what he could have earned.

"Could you except the difference in trade?" The Aldermen insisted.

Jerome, being a terrible haggler and exhausted, glanced over at the Alderman with his cat eyes and asked: "What does your village have to offer?"

The Alderman seemed so delighted, that the witcher was being so forthcoming, that he was back to his louder tone of voice. "The onion harvest just came in! I could offer you two sacks." Jerome let a clearly audible groan loose. He did not wish to offend his host or his community, but not only were onions an astonishingly cheap crop, but he also disliked the smell. The Aldermen quickly picked up on this, added: "A… and some rabbits my son trapped this morning."

The Onions and rabbits wouldn't have been enough for one drowner head, let alone two. Jerome took the last swig of is ale, inhaled deeply and reminded himself that he was at the very least, not returning home empty handed. Jerome agreed and the Aldermen had the goods loaded on his horse, handed him a purse containing the thirty coppers and bade him farewell.

Just as Jerome was about to mount, his eyes darted to a patch of red approaching him. "Witcher Jerome? I had no clue you'd be here today." A young, freckled faced girl smiled greeting him with arms extended. She was the eldest daughter of a friendly smith from a neighboring village. They too called on the help of the local witcher's guild, no more than a season ago. Jerome was given the task of dealing with an infestation of ghouls that plagued their graveyard.

"Don't!" Jerome abruptly stopped her from reaching arm's length. "I've been working today." He looked down at his stinking ruin of a jacket. "And you look lovely, Roxelana." He noted her floral patterned dress.

"Oh Jerome, that didn't bother me." She blushed, remembering the night they spent together after he drove the monsters from her hometown. He seemed so strong and brave and her aunt had once mentioned that witchers could not sire children and felt little emotion, so no one would ever need to know of her indiscretion.

"I suppose it didn't." he too had to smile to himself. The thought of how pretty and pale and freckled all over her body was would have made him blush if his complexion would have allowed it. Her fiery red hair had caught his eye upon arriving at her father's smithy, but Jerome had little experience interacting with women and was much too self-aware of his own appearance to speak to someone as pretty as she was. Yet she chose to visit him that night, to bring him food and comfort. He had never known such tenderness as she showed him that night. He attempted to visit her multiple times after that, yet his guild Masters always had work and other duties for him keeping him from it.

just as the witcher was about to ask her why she was visiting. A tall brawny man approached Roxalana from behind, placed a wreath of wild flowers on her head and kissed her on her cheek. "Almost everything has been prepared, my love." He giddily embraced her, almost lifting the red headed madden from the ground.

For a moment, Jerome felt taken back at the sight of another man laying his arms on Roxalana, but then it occurred to him: her dress, the floral wreath and, as he had just noticed, the large bonfire some villagers were building at the village's center.

"You!" The tall brawny villager exclaimed as he noticed the witcher. "You must be the Master witcher who saved our homestead!" He spoke louder as he got closer to Jerome. "And father just told me you were willing to take some of your reward in trade." He grabbed Jerome's hand from his side and squeezed it tightly. "Father wouldn't have been able to afford Roxalana's dowry if you hadn't." This made Jerome retract his hand from the friendly shake a bit too abruptly. An awkward moment hung between the three, before the Aldermen's son insistently broke the silence. "Will you stay for the feast Master? We'd be honored to have you." Jerome felt as though there was a fruit pit caught in his throat. But even if he could audibly voice his thoughts, there wasn't a thought in his mind.

"My father could use some help unloading the cart," Roxalana stated sweetly, as she laid a hand on her betrothed's back. He smiled, kissed her on her cheek once more, then jogged off to do her bidding. Her smile faded as she turned her attention back to the witcher. "I wanted to tell you…" she trailed off.

Jerome sighed, he didn't actually believe Roxalana would wait for him. witchers did not marry. They were infertile, and so it made no sense. She was of prime marrying age and an Aldermen's son was generally better suited to peasant life then witchers were. Jerome reached into his front pouch for the purse filled with copper coins and handed it to the red-haired maiden. "A wedding gift. It's not much, but new families need all the help they can get." Roxalana hesitantly accepted it, nodding without saying anything else.

'Whoever spread the rumor that witchers have no emotions, is a fucking moron.' Jerome kept himself from saying that aloud as he got on his chestnut brown mare and strode off, leaving the simple people to their celebration.

It took Jerome almost half a day to reach the witcher Bastion of Ban Gora. By that time, it had almost gotten dark. But witchrs with their cat eyes could see in the dark and Jerome had already crossed the wooden bridge, the same one he had repaired on multiple occasions, hundreds of times in the years living and training at the Bastion. He had reinforced the bridge's weaker points with new boards and nails almost every year after the winters and still the damn thing would creak with every step his horse made. It wasn't long until the tall curved walls of the circular bastion came into view. Unlike most witcher schools, the bastion awarded to the school of the griffin was relatively new. They originated from a colony of renegade mages in eastern Redania, but after the school's Founder, Grandmaster Rigor lifted a curse from the Kedwheni line of succession the witcher school of the griffin was awarded a relatively new keep and free roam in the northern kingdom of Kedwin.

The two pages, still training in the torch-lit courtyard, were quick to drop their practice swords and dart to the stables to assist the witcher and hopefully be the first to hear of his adventurous hunt. However, as they realized it was Jerome who had returned their dash slowed into an unmotivated jog. They knew the kinds of monsters he hunted were mundane and unexciting. He didn't blame them. He was one of them, barely five years ago. So excited to hear of exotic monsters and the cunning ways the Masters would stalk and cut them down. So giddy at the aspect of earning his own griffin head medallion and wielding his own silver plated sword, with which he would banish all evil from the land, and the maddens would swoon at his sight, and the peasantry would lay tokens of respect and affection at his feet.

However, he learned quickly that evil had a terrible habit of hiding in dark and dingy places, that maddens often preferred tall, virile men and the peasantry, no matter how thankful they were to be rid of monsters, regarded witchers as an equally hideous nuisance. After all, witchers were not quite human themselves.

"Wellcome home, brother Jerome!" the taller, blonder one of the two greeted him, slightly out of breath from the less than motivated jog, but friendly none the less.

"Greetings boys!" Jerome waved them over. He handed the one who greeted him the onions and rabbits he had earned on his hunt. "Take them straight to the kitchens." He instructed, then prepared to stable his mare. The shorter, quieter one added him.

"Took payment in trade again?" The boy said as he hung the horse's bridle.

"They are poor, Tybalt. I took what I could." Jerome answered the page, as he began brushing the chestnut brown mare. Jerome liked Tybalt, he thought they were similar in many ways. They were booth taken by beast master Garth at an early age, booth the shortest and scrawniest on their classes and booth the last expected to survive the trial of grasses.

"Brother George returned this morning while you were away," Tybalt informed Jerome, as he too began brushing. "He brought back a wyvern's head."

"Is that so?" Jerome did his best to conceal the discontent in his voice. Jerome was George's senior by a year, yet George had quickly surpassed him in all witcher disciplines.

"I'll finish up here." Tybalt insisted. "You have to report to the masters now, correct?" he asked leading Jerome's horse into the bastion stables.

Jerome grunted at the aspect of what came next. The walk to the Grandmaster's chamber wasn't far from the courtyard but he took his time. Not wanting to be chastised for doing the 'right thing' was a justification in itself, however, Jerome knew he was at fault in this case. And so he tried again and again to find some argument to present to the Grandmaster. 'They were so poor they had nothing else to pay me with… No, all peasants are poor, that's never an excuse. They had no money, so the aldermen tried to give me his doughtier… No, Grandmaster would ask me where the girl is. When I returned to collect my reward, the village vanished! No, that's the stupidest thing I've ever thought of….'

Jerome was so consumed with the formulation of his excuses, he hadn't realized he had almost passed the Grandmasters chambers. Just as Jerome was about to knock on the overly ornate doors, a familiar deep, gruff voice ordered him to enter.

Grandmaster Sora Von Gynvale was a short and skinny man. On first glance, one would have mistaken him for a starved dwarf, not only based on his stature but also how he would braid his beard and adorn each of his fingers with a gold ring. "Witcher Jerome… have a seat, beast master Garth and I would like to have a word." The Grandmaster gestured to a chair in front of his desk.

Jerome had not noticed master Garth's presents, obscured by the high-backed chair he sat on kept him from sight and the terrible incense, Grandmaster Sora insisted on burning, alienated all other scents. He took his place in silence and nodded at Master Garth in recognition.

"Jerome, how long has it been since your Trial of the grasses?" The Grandmaster asked as he filled a cup of water for himself.

Jerome cleared his thought and scratched a nonexistent itch on his chin. "Almost six years now, possibly more." He noticed how Master Garth shifted in his chair and stiffly fixed his cat eyes firmly on the grandmaster's ebony desk. He seemed unusually tense. Jerome knew him as a joyful and laid-back individual, this made leaving his family and traveling to a foreign land almost tolerable.

"Yes, so many promising Pages that year." The Grandmaster lamented Jerome being the only one to survive his transformations. "And the assignments you have been completing, Tell me about them." Grandmaster Sora pulled a large leather bound book from his shelf behind him and laid it out on his desk between the three of them.

Jerome knew where the Grandmaster was going. At least once a year, since his transformation, he would summon Jerome for evaluation. To check on his progression in the witcher trade, as he would put it. To Jerome, it was the Grandmaster's way of comparing him to better witchers and 'motivate' him to do better. "Same as last year, and the year before," Jerome grunted, in an unmotivated tone.

"I see it here." Grandmaster Sora pointed the record out in his leather bound book. "You've exterminated two necker tribes, a ghoul infestation and… a nest of harpies?" the Grandmaster questioned, with a raised brow.

"They aren't endemic to our region. I suppose they migrated." Jerome answered with a slightly prideful tone. They were literally the most exotic monsters he had ever hunted. "And just this morning I hunted a family of drowners." He added, knowing full well that it did not aid his situation.

"And that's exactly the problem, brother Jerome." The Grandmaster closed the book with a dramatic thud. "You have been practicing the trade for almost six years now. And still you hunt the most insignificant creatures in our domain. Creatures that only bother peasants in isolated villages. Presents who can't pay for your services."

Jerome should have kept his mouth shut, and he usually did when being scolded. "Witchers protect people from monsters. It's the only thing we are good for." Master Garth's gaze went from wondering the office straight to his apprentice in shock. No one spoke back to Grandmaster Sora.

The Grandmaster, however, was as calm as always. Lent over his desk, resting his elbows on it and picking at his impeccably braided beard in contemplation. "And who do you think pays for your good works? Who feeds you? Who maintains the bastion you live in? Who do you think paid for your silver sword?" The Grandmaster's gaze grew colder with every question. "Brother George returned just this morning with the head of a wyvern and five gold Ducats. That's who pays. You've been relying on your witcher brothers, your guild, all your life." Grandmaster Sora leaned back in his ornate wooden chair to get at some folded documents in his desk's drawers. "Master Garth and I have decided that the best thing for you is to get out into the world." The Grandmaster handed Jerome a thick, folded piece of parchment with the Griffin school's seal embossed in red wax on its top. "These are your journeymen's papers. Where ever it is you choose to go, we wish you all the best."