Geralt was travelling on a mare, this one white, but still named Roach. It had been a few weeks since his last contract and his fingers were getting restless. Approaching a small village he noticed a board with some papers hanging on.
I guess it wouldn't hurt to look for a job, waiting for one hasn't helped.
He hopped off his horse and looked over the signs. To his surprise, this village was elven, and the signs were in elder speech. Although not fluent, he was able to read most of it. The words warning and monster were obvious. Taking the sign from the board he walked towards the biggest hut he could see, expecting it to belong to someone of importance.
An elf came out, a bit taller than him, which wasn't surprising. "Ah a witcher. Hadn't seen one of your kind in decades. Almost thought you really had all gone extinct."
Geralt shrugged. This wasn't the worst reception he had gotten, but it still wasn't pleasant. "This monster problem you have, is there a reward for it?"
"Ahh yes, that." The elf looked at the paper, "Well no, not really. Sorry witcher, no coin to be made here."
Geralt sighed. "Why not? Aren't you worried you'll get attacked."
"The witcher has a heart?" The elf laughed, "but to answer your question, no we're not. This is simply a warming because in the fields there has been a monster that attacks merchants. We don't wander into the fields so it doesn't seem to attack us."
Geralt looked towards where he came, looks like he wouldn't be making any money here. He turned around and left.
Hopping back on his horse, he wandered a bit till he saw a carriage not too far from the village, but of course it was broken down. He got closer to investigate.
"The side of carriage has been tipped over." He poked his head inside and saw a dead merchant. His head clean off. "This is no monster, but then why is there a warning in the village?"
He used his witcher senses to see if there was anything else, and found boot prints, large than his own. "Must be a big fellow. With that size, it's no surprise that it could chop off the merchant's head so easily."
He whistled for Roach to come and mounted her to ride off. His senses active, he could see the prints. They were fresh so he wasn't too far behind. He neared a mountain, where the prints ended abruptly. His medallion started vibrating, and thus he used his senses. He could hear water flowing through the inside of the mountain. It was a strong spell, but it had been affected already. He used sign of Aard to push anything that were to be in front of the spell and ran through it. He was allowed through, but the image stayed. Interesting. He kept walking, and found the source of water. It was a bridge, and under ran a river. He tried remembering this landmark, but couldn't quite put a finger on it. Crossing he came to a small village where he saw children all running around.
"Look another stranger!" one of the boys screamed and everyone turned to see him.
He looked at them and saw small child elves, all wearing green tunics. "What's going on here?" The "another" implied that someone else had been here.
One of the child elves stepped up to him, green hair, with a male child staying close behind her. "You have twin swords… does that mean you're a witcher?" The young elf stared right in his yellow eyes, no fear.
"Yes, you are correct. I saw traces of someone being attacked, and decided to investigate." Geralt was slightly confused, but decided that this elf, was not as young as he thought. "Do you have any information?"
"Yes! We're in desperate need of your help sir."
"I'm not a knight, but tell me what happened."
The elf then told him, "One of us found an elven woman, and she was injured, we decided to help her, but after bringing her in, we were attacked by a monster!"
"This monster, do you have any details?"
"Yes, it was a dark knight, decked in black armor, with only a halberd as his weapon. He stomped in here and followed after the woman!"
Geralt tried to think of a monster like this, but couldn't. Might not be that kind of monster… "Well point the way, and maybe I can help."
"Thank you master witcher. I know you don't work for free, and the woman is our responsibility, but we have no money to pay you in." He thought as much, but didn't feel like charging them to begin with. This job felt odd, and he knew he had to take it. "However, you can take what you find at the temple. I'm sure there'll be something for you."
Potions? Exlixirs maybe? "Thank you. I'll be on my way now."
He ran towards the entrance of some woods. This all felt surreal to him. He'd never seen this mountain, and now there were woods, rivers and even a village inside. Well they're children so I can see why they're in hiding, but whoever did the spell must be fairly powerful. A huge mountain pops up and no one mentions anything, powerful indeed. But whoever broke that spell must be powerful too. He came to crossroads and decided to go left; however, just when he was about to take a third step his medallion vibrated radically. In mid air, with his witcher practice, he stopped. He took a step backwards, multiple times until he was at the crossroads again and walked to the right. This time no vibrations occurred and he picked up the pace. Hopefully that was enough to slow down that monster. He pulled out his silver sword, and ran with it out, not wanting to be caught by surprise. This wasn't a pub where he could afford that second delay. He could feel it, something was amiss.
Finally he reached what he thought to be the temple. He could see a tree had been chopped down to build a sort of walkway for the entrance; however, it had been done recently. He picked up the pace and ran up to the entrance. He pulled out two elixirs, one for his cat eyes, and green one for better strength. He could feel them taking effect right away, and looked into the building like if it were day. He knew the village people were not children, they couldn't be, but that didn't stop him from feeling despair at the two bodies that laid on the floor. He went further in to see the monster. Truly, in front of him was a knight, over six feet tall, decked in black armor, with his halberd trying to break down a door.
"Well aren't you ugly." The witcher ran straight at him and sliced straight down its spine.
The monster grunted but didn't die. Obviously not human. Instead the halberd came in a circle at Geralt. He jumped back, just barely dodging it, but now the weapon, after completing the spin was coming back downwards at an even faster rate. Barely dodging forward, the withcer stabbed his sword into the crevice of the neck. A sure kill in most cases, the monster grunted again and simply turned to look at him. The helmet it wore, was black, but there was a hole for the eyes, but no eyes stared back. Geralt jumped back. Was that a skeleton? Or a mistake? No, with his potion and the eyes of a cat, he made no mistakes, he was fighting an armored skeleton. In his confusion though, the halberd was coming up, not as powerful as a downward strike, but the strength of this monster was enough to throw Geralt against a wall. Planting his sword in the ground to stand up, he casted Quenn to protect him. He ran again one more time, and the halberd was waiting for him. Protecting the monster from Geralt's inner strikes. He used his sword as a parry to try to break in, but when he tried, even with Quenn active, he was thrown across the temple again. He stood up and circled the monster, the halberd coming in a circle, this time Geralt jumped over the back swing and slashed down. Again the monster grunted. This is it! From behind Geralt used Aard to push the monster forward, already arhcing his back from the attack, he fell. Quickly he walked up and stabbed downwards multiple times on the monsters neck.
He backed up, and waited. That was the end of the monster.
He walked up to the door, hanging by the hinges, and knocked. There was no answer. He leaned against it and used his witcher senses, but could only hear sobbing. "Open up please, the monster is dead."
Still, there was no reply.
He used the sign of Aard, for the third time that day and pushed the door clear of its hinges. Inside, he found the woman, sitting against the wall facing the door. He walked up to her, but found her dead, in her arms a babe elf crying.