In the 25th century, Emperor Karl Franz I ruled over the Empire of Man, which was beset from all sides, both within and without.
From the far north, the Norsemen from Norsca strive for supremacy over the old world raiding the coasts to get the attention of their dark gods.
Separating Norsca from the Empire's Nothern provinces is the icy kingdom of Kislev, led by Tzar Michael the Bold who expanded the frozen kingdom of Kislev's borders to the great high passes and at the very edge of the world's mountains, and thanks to his wife, Tzarina Katarin Bohka, he was able to integrate the Slavic-Rus tribes and build there the first navy to protect their ports along the sea of claws. But at the siege of Kraka Drake, his war luck was finally worn out.
Leaving Tzarina Katarin Bohka and her son Mieszko Romanov Bohka to protect Kislev
At the same time, in the dark forests of Sylvania, an event would light the spark that would change the fate of the entire world forever.
{Even the smallest person can change the course of the Future.}
2499
Janna hurried through the labyrinthine halls of the Celestial Collage, her Azure blue robes swaying with each step as she steadily made her way up the winding stairs to the school's highest tower. A day ago, she received a message through the Azyr from her master, Patriarch Raphael Julevo, calling for her urgent return to the college. The minute she saw her master's message forming in the night sky, she packed up her personal effects and her post on Kislev's border. She hoped her fellow magisters could continue scrying for chaos threats while she was away at the capital.
The trip went by quickly. She made regular use of the swift-wing spell, allowing herself to be carried by the Azyr to fly for the majority of the journey. She jumped from mountain peak to mountain peak until she reached Altdorf in a beam of blue energy. While a risky method of travel, Janna knew Julevno would never write a celestial message unless the matter was truly important.
She felt a wave of nostalgia wash over her as she walked into college for the first time in ten years; at 35, she was one of the order's youngest fully fledged master wizards. Despite having only had a brief appearance within the college's walls, she felt a strong attachment to the place. The wonder of discovering magic for the first time when she was nothing but a poor Ostland merchant's daughter was truly one of her happiest memories. Second, only when she was picked by the Patriarch himself to be his personal apprentice did her years of hard work and study truly pay off.
But she soon noticed the calm, serene atmosphere she remembered from her schooling years was replaced with a static, tense feeling, like dark clouds before a thunderstorm. The usually tranquil Celestial Magisters were in a frantic state, completely ignoring her as they rushed by. On several occasions, she had to step out of the way as some apprentice or wizard barreled down the corridor carrying various tomes and scrolls.
She did her best to avoid any obstacles, adjusting her auburn hair as she headed up the last flight of stairs to the great astrolabe, the magic center of the Celestial College. She entered without hesitation, pushing the huge double doors with a gentle gust of Azyr-infused wind. The wards quickly recognized her magic, allowing her entry into the massive crystal dome that housed the astrolabe.
The magnificent dome was the highest point in the college; it provided an unparalleled view of the heavens above, showing each star in perfect clarity. She remembered spending hours here with the other apprentices, learning about every star in the sky, magnified even further by the many lenses of the great telescope at its summit. But the most important artifact was the Great Astrolabe itself, a mechanical artifact baring thousands of celestial symbols and able to arrange itself into innumerable different combinations to depict whatever future the Wizard sought.
Her master was hunched over the mechanical marvel, dressed in dark blue robes, so engrossed in watching the many dials twist and turn that he didn't seem to notice her entrance. However, as she was about to greet him, Raphael jolted upright and turned to face her with his usual smile.
"Ah, you arrived within the 10-minute time frame I expected," he said as he turned back to look at the astrolabe.
"Master I..." she began, but before she could finish, Raphael grabbed her arm, urging her to look at what he was looking at.
"Watch this," he said in a low voice. "Tell me what you see."
She focused on the dials moving across the astrolabe's surface; every 5 minutes they seemed to repeat a pattern, spelling out the same message again and again.
"You see that?" he said, leaning back tiredly and cracking his back. "The exact same pattern has been repeating for the last 24 hours. No matter what I or the Acolytes do, the astrologer refuses to show us anything else."
This news surprised her; the astrolabe was the empire's primary means of predicting future threats, and for it to behave so strangely had to mean something major was on the horizon.
"Have you managed to interpret the meaning?" It would take time for her to decipher everything herself, so she hoped he already had an answer.
"Yes, I have." He said tiredly, "I have cross-checked it with all my colleagues; we went over the meaning a thousand times just to be sure, but we can't decipher the last one," He turned to her with an uncharacteristically grim expression.
"What we were able to decipher is that a chaos invasion, so large that no one can stop it, is coming years from now, an invasion to end all invasions."
Janna stared at him in disbelief, trying to comprehend the meaning of his words—how could something so significant pass without her notice? In all her years at the Empire border, she had never failed to predict a chaos attack; not even the smallest warbands escaped her notice.
"How could that be! I have been scoring the stars at the border for the last 10 years, and I have never seen a single portent indicating a Chaos attack of this size!" she exclaimed, raising her voice
Raphael firmly tapped his foot on the ground, and an Azure wind swept out from under his feet, snapping her out of her mental trance. "You will calm yourself within the Astrolabe or you will leave," he said flatly.
"I thought I taught you better than this; you know as well as I do that our sight is limited; we catch mere glimpses of the future; it is never certain that we see everything."
"Which is why we have this." He said, gesturing to the To help us see that which we fail to see ourselves." He turned back to watch the innumerable silver dials spelling out the message once more.
"All possible futures seem to lead to one result; the stars all point to one end; chaos will sweep the Old World, and the Empire will fall." Her master's discourse was borderline heretical, he said, each word filling her with dread; it's one thing to say an invasion is coming; it's quite another to say all hope is lost and destruction is guaranteed.
"Are you implying there is no means to prevent this?" she asked carefully.
Raphael seemed to find her words amusing, letting out a dry chuckle. "There is a way, but it becomes... perplexing."
"There is no way to prevent the coming of chaos, but... there is a means to stop it when it finally comes." He said it with a small smile growing on his lips.
"Stop it?" Janna questioned, hoping he would elaborate rather than dance around the point.
"Precisely." He exhaled now with a full-blown smile on his face. "The astrolabe is clear; our only hope is to find this Aen Hen Ichaer to save all of the Old World," he said while turning away to walk over to one of the many desks dotting the room. He leaned over to pick up a leather-bound book and handed it to her with care.
"Here's the full translation of what we managed to decipher; the Azyr is clear; the Empire and its people can be saved." He moved beside her and pointed at one of the pages. "Look here, the message indicates that this Aen Hen Ichaer will appear somewhere in Sylvania." "Should we manage to find this Aen Hen Ichaer, we might be able to stop the forces of chaos from winning," he said with finality.
She pondered this information, reading through the pages multiple times to make sure she did not miss any details. "Who is Aen Hen Ichaer? Is it an ancient weapon, a spell, or possibly a person?" She said it almost disbelievingly.
She closed the book with a small thump and handed it back to Raphael while her mind processed all its contents.
He took the book under his arm and nodded, saying, "It could be all three, but we don't know how precise the message is, but what we can tell is this Aen Hen Ichaer will arrive three years from today; now you see my dilemma, our dilemma."If we do nothing, we die, but how do you go about convincing the Emperor to find the one thing that could save entire nations of millions if we do not know what it is or what it looks like?"
He sighed, placing the book back on the table. "Even with the Emperor on our side, it will be a difficult task. I will do all I can to convince the Emperor's son of the coming threat. Karl Franz has proven amenable to my words in the past." He then pointed at her.
"You, Janna, will go to Kislev. I will pen a letter with all the Celestial Order's findings, and you will deliver it to Tzarina Katarina and stand by her side to assist her to the best of your abilities." He turned back to the astrolabe, his blue eyes focusing once more on the gears.
"If the Old World is to survive, we must unite." He intoned gravely.
Rather than respond, she simply nodded, detecting the tone of dismissal in his voice. She turned to leave the dome to think about what she had learned; while she would have loved to catch up with her master, now was not the time.
They had a lot of work to do.
2502
Sylvania.
A dreadful place; a land perpetually shrouded in gloom and mist; where abandoned castles glared down like hungry orges on the desolate roads; where sullen villagers, some with the stigma of mutation, mumbled dark warnings against going abroad by night; and where red-eyed, pale-faced noblemen will study a man hungrily through a curtained window of his night-black coach, like a freshly cooked feast. For it is a backwater region where gunpowder is treated as a frightening marvel while it is considered the rightful domain of the vampire counts of the Von Carstein bloodline, even though the Grand Country of Stirland officially owns the territory.
But for just a single brief moment, there was a bright light that lit up the entire forest, splitting the heavens for what seemed like hours before sealing shut like a door. Returning to the gloomy atmosphere of the fallen province, except that if you look closely, you'll notice a single figure slowly staggering to her feet, supported by one of the trees.
The young woman with ashen blond hair wore clothing made of the finest materials but was worn down by constant travel, which included a cotton cream-white shirt with shiny silk stripes, a dark brown leather underbust corset, dark brown suede, and leather gloves, dark brown leather pants with studs, and finally light brown leather-heeled boots, while her accessories were nothing to laugh at either.
A finely crafted sword was hanging on a leather belt over her shoulder, along with a decorated silver belt with turquoise blue gems, a snakeskin belt with a golden buckle, two leather bags strapped to it, and last but not least, a secondary weapon in the form of a dagger.
"That was too close," she muttered quietly as the ashen-haired young woman staggered back to her feet, using one of the almost-dead trees to finally steady herself.
The Een Elle, better known to others as the wild hunt, was relentlessly tracking her through other worlds like hunters trying to find their prey and killing anything that got in their way. Taking the survivors back to their world who were young and strong enough to be turned into slaves and killing off the old and weak still weighs heavily on her conscience, like heavy twin anvils that never seem to disappear.
She shook her head for a moment as she started to scan her new surroundings, noticing the forest is old growth of some kind but is corrupted somehow. She ran her hand along the brittle bark, tearing a small piece of the tree bark from one of the oak trees to examine it more closely.
"These oaks, they almost look sickly," she muttered under her breath, as the tree bark was rougher than that of any normal tree. "It's not magic of some kind; if it were, my talisman would sense it."
She could tell she wasn't in Dol Blathanna because all of the old growth was burned down in the kingdom of Kaedwen many years ago during the second great northern war as retribution for joining the Nilfguard empire, implying she wasn't back on the continent. She then picked at a patch of moss and examined it more closely, noticing it was completely different from the ones she was familiar with.
But there was one major but subtle difference: it was half-dead. like something snapped almost all of the life out of the plant.
She was distracted from her thoughts when a small ladybug crawled near her hand and she snatched it up, inspecting it closely. It wasn't healthy and looked deformed. "This bug has extra legs; the growth looks almost tumorous." She popped it in her mouth, chewed on it, then spat it out before gaging.
"Oh, gods, that was disgusting; I wonder how Greralt makes it look so easy," she said in disgust, wiping her mouth, "but still, it's not alchemical mutations." "It could be magical, but my amulet didn't vibrate."
Her eyes scanned the horizon, looking for the nearest way out of the forest; unfortunately, the trees were so sickly that they might break under her body weight; even with her power, she would not take such a risk if it meant seriously injuring herself, and what's worse is that she couldn't see the sky above because of how dense the clouds were; adding that to the fact that the branches of the trees are thick and the mist didn't help in the least,
After taking a deep breath, she simply chose a direction and headed in that direction, hoping to come across anything resembling civilization. When it was getting dark, she began making camp on any dry ground she could find, but everywhere she looked, the ground was either muddy or too damp to make a proper fire.
Luckily, she did find some shelter underneath one of the tree trunks, which was hollow and dry enough for a fire to burn unhindered or disappear any time soon. Grabbing pieces of dry bark or wood nearest to her, it took the female warrior a moment before a fire was finally created, and the warmth of the flames brought some comfort from the dampness of the harsh rain.
The young woman reached for the amulet around her neck, feeling its reassuring presence. It was the only item that linked her to the only people she considers to be her true family. But the world can be very cruel at times, trying to take away the people who were closest to her, like it was trying to beat her down like some dog. It almost did, as an angry mob almost killed her adoptive parents.
Thus, in the end, it is extremely difficult to sort out the good from the evil if the greatest monster can be the one you least expect.
She moved through the forest again after a night's rest (or what Sylvania considers a night). Her green eyes caught what had to be dozens of species of plants and fungi that she didn't recognize, and among them, she spotted slight mutations and other variations that implied the ecosystem had been contaminated by mutagenic properties. just slight enough that only a skilled herbalist would be able to notice.
"Okay, definitely not in Dol Blathanna." "But I might be able to brew some healing herbs or poisons from these." Ciri began taking careful samples of the plants that surrounded her, gently taking flower buds, seeds, and the other reproductive parts of the plants she passed.
It was then that she caught a faint scream in the distance, and she immediately unsheathed Zireael. Her senses, from years of experience, honed in on the source of the distress. There was a second scream, in which she found the direction it had come from. She burst into a sprint, moving through the forest with the grace of an elf. Her footwork was impeccable, stepping from rocky outcroppings to roots that were free of slippery moss to clear patches of dirt she could safely traverse without getting her boots stuck.
She came across a crevice, and without even pausing for a moment, she used her elder blood to teleport across the crack before reappearing on the other side.
The cries were starting to die down, replaced by the familiar sound of plate metal being struck with heavy blunt objects, beastly roars, curses, and the screams of the dying. There were a lot of cracks that she could not discern the nature of. They sounded like bombs but were almost muffled. However, the more she got closer to the fight, the more the smell got stronger, much more than the kinds of powder she was used to. Whoever was using bombs must have had a powder of potency that she had never seen before. She must have been transported to a world where black powder was being used as a weapon.
The female witcher came upon an ill-maintained road. The cobblestone had gone green with overgrowth and moss; roots were pushing up the stones; trees were starting to encroach upon the trail. The path had probably not been used in decades or had been poorly maintained, but a part of her was just relieved to see some semblance of civilization at long last.
She heard a twig breaking and the smell of wet fur. Without a doubt, it is human blood. With a practiced pirouette, she cut and bisected the attacker at the waist in a single smooth stroke. An overgrown Sylvan with thick fur stood before her, its eyes widening as its torso slid off its legs. She got a good look at its filthy hide. The creature was caked from head to toe with blood and dirt. The smell was horrendous and almost enough to overwhelm the female witcher. She silently thanked the universe that she didn't have the witcher's senses. There were prominent purple tattoos across the creature's hide that hurt the young woman's eyes to look at them. She averted her gaze from the body and moved away from it to protect herself from magical effects.
Can't be a Sylvan. Too big. And the horns are too curved. It's impossible to be a Sylvan. creature, she reflected. Magical markings indicate a guiding intelligence; perhaps a sorcerer summoned it. The markings are too complex for a dumb beast to adorn himself with. Maybe it's a mutant or just a new species to me. Perhaps this world's counterpart to the Sylvans, but more ferocious. "If there's a connection, I should prepare my blade with Relict oil."
She got to her knees and reached for the veil of relic oil on her belt pouches. She removed the cork stopper and carefully took it out, using the brush on the other side to cover her blade in a thin layer of Relic oil.
Hanged men might not hurt either. She thought as she repeated the process with the oil, being more careful not to get any on her fingers. This was the only oil in her possession that could hurt her as well.
The sounds of fighting continued. She would have to be quick if she were to intervene. I have to be careful not to scare the locals; I don't want them to think I'm a threat, but that means I have to fight the hard way. But at the same time, I'll be at a disadvantage if these things decide to go south.
"Might as well prepare some bombs just in case." She went for her bomb pouch on her right hip, taking out a northern wind to freeze any large groups of opponents, a grapeshot bomb to shatter them, and a dancing star to burn anything big and armored she might come across
Once She was ready the female warrior got to her feet and charged, heading toward the sounds of combat.
She crested the top of a small hill and looked down, seeing that she was approaching what looked like the edge of the forest. There were two wagons in the middle of a road, surrounded by a vast field of woodland. The wagons were surrounded by a makeshift barricade and were defended by armored soldiers with plate chest pieces and helmets, but red shirts and pants that appeared through the armor. The soldiers held firm but were slowly losing cohesion in the face of their attackers. In the distance, she saw more carts moving away, like the ones that had stayed.
A holding action. She reflected on herself. The soldiers had stayed behind to cover the retreat.
There had to be four dozen soldiers behind the wagon, surrounded by many more attackers that were trying to get at them. More of the man-beasts are made up of a great many different phenotypes. Goats, bulls, horses, and birds—some with horns and others without All of them were angry and baying for blood. Their weapons were either rusty pieces of metal, massive chunks of wood fashioned into clubs with heads as big as a man's chest, or a combination of both.
Deciding the only way to figure out where she was would be to get in contact with the local human, she chose to intervene in the fight. She wouldn't stand aside as humans were killed by monsters. And perhaps she could earn a reward for it too.
She dashed down the hill, grabbing the northern wind bomb and hurling it into a swarm of man-beasts. He pulled back his left hand as the bomb landed, reaching for the grapeshot and throwing it more slowly so it would detonate after the north wind had run its course.
The bomb exploded in a blast of icy cold energy that swept across the man-beasts, instantly freezing their flesh. Then, moments later, the Grapeshot detonated in their midsection, blasting the ice sculpture apart in a massive bloody explosion, intermingled with shards of ice.
She then "charged," becoming a blur as her sword lashed out at the monsters for a second, killing dozens of them in a display of gore and blood as she entered combat, reappearing behind one of the man-beasts.
She lashed out with her sword, beheading the first man-beast with a precise cut, then reversing the strike to go through the eye socket of a smaller beast. She twisted the blade and ripped it free in a shower of blood.
The young woman quickly grabbed the creatures' club, smashing the skull of one of the smaller ones.
What looked like a fiend on two legs charged the female Witcher, wielding a massive wooden club above its head and bringing it down towards her. Not skipping a beat, she drew her knife and sidestepped the oncoming attack with the grace of an elf wardancer. She thrust the tip of her knife into the throat of the man-beast, twisted the blade, and ripped it free in an explosion of dark arterial blood.
She heard a twig crack behind her, and she whirled around and threw the knife at the next attacker, hitting the beast in the shoulder. The charge of the man-beast was halted as it nearly fell over backward, only stopping the fall by using the long haft. She flowed forward, then, with a single clean stroke, cut the right leg off the creature with a spray of blood. The beast roared in pain before she aimed a cut at the side of its cheek, then cut its head in half with a single good stroke.
To her dismay, she did not see any chemical reactions on her blade. The Relic and Hanged Man oils weren't doing anything. She'd use beast oil the next time.
"You're one ugly bastard." She stated that one of the smaller creatures charged him, only for her to parry the creature's clumsy strike and twist her blade to force the attacker to let go of his mace, followed up by a quick two-handed attack to bisect it.
She heard cracks in the distance and realized they sounded like the weapons in Night City. One of the creatures she was confronted with was on its knees, a bloody hole in its head. There were more cracks, and more monsters dropped.
She caught a glimpse of several soldiers with rifles standing on the carts, firing at the enemies around her. The soldiers behind the barricades surged forward, moving as a wall and driving the enemy before them with spears that thrust deeply into unarmored flesh. They were pulled free and struck again and again.
Seeing the fighting was nearing its end, she began moving through the running enemies, striking with quick, forceful thrusts and slashes at the man-beasts as they tried to run. She noted that the only way to put them down quickly was a swift beheading, and she was more than happy to oblige. As the last creature fell, she took a deep breath, cleaned her knife, and put it back in its sheath.
"I thank you, stranger. You saved us. I thought we were doomed after we stayed behind to cover the Sisters of Shallya's wagons. A voice from behind her said this. She turned around to look at a young man with brown eyes and the beginning of a beard. He couldn't be more than two decades old. He was holding a bloody spear in his hands. "Are you a sister of Myrmidon?" "I've never seen someone use bombs like those."
She saw the soldiers eyeing her carefully. There were only nine soldiers left. Three of them had large rifles. They were busy pouring what looked like a black powder down the barrel of their weapons before pulling out a long metal rod and pushing a metal ball inside, which intrigued the female witcher.
"Living with an order of monster hunters can do that to you." "But I haven't seen creatures like these before." She said.
"You've never seen Beastmen before." Where in the hell did you come from? Araby or something?" The man sounded stern but also shaky. like that of a man with a facade of toughness. She had met many soldiers like that when she was just a girl, and this soldier sounded no different.
"It's... very hard to explain, but you can say I am brand new to these unfamiliar lands," she said carefully; she wouldn't want these people to consider her a threat.
"Well, if you're not a vampire or a Sigmar damned mutant, then we won't pry, but I would like the name of the brave maiden who saved us," the man said, raising a single eyebrow at the strange woman in front of them.
"Cirilla." She introduced herself to the captain, "Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, or just Ciri for short."
The soldier approached to offer her his hand, which the woman known as Ciri took, saying, "It's good to meet you, miss Ciri." "My name is sergeant Theoderich Von Akenburg of the Reikland Seventh Spear Regiment, Third Company." The soldier, now known as Theoderich, introduced himself, but when the captain was about to speak, one of his men cut him off.
"I apologize for intruding sergeant. But we may want to get going before it gets dark. Theoderich looked at the sky and paled a bit as he saw that the sun was starting to set on the horizon, before pulling himself together.
"Scherzer... Hans, I want you and the men to gather the equipment of the dead and put them all into the cart for transport. "We don't want any of those bloody damn Beastmen to wield our weapons against us; in the meantime, make sure you put the bodies in the cart as well; the priests of Morr are going to be busy tonight."
The soldier solemnly nodded his head, "Yes, sir."
He returned to Ciri with a solemn expression on his face, "Ciri was it? You better accompany us to the town of Templehof; it's not that far."
"I take that refusing isn't a choice?"
The sargeant simply nodded, saying, "Not if you want to be hunted by more Beastmen, because I doubt they'll leave you alone after what you have slayed many of their kin."
Sighing, Ciri sheathed her sword before stepping toward the soldiers. "Alright, I'll come along. I'd rather not sleep in the mud again and a proper bed would feel good for once."
"Smart girl, we're a few hours away, yet the road will get us there quickly. Once my men finish gathering the dead, we'll head out to Templehof immediately."
True to his word, it only took half an hour for the soldiers to finish gathering the honored dead, as one of the soldiers took a piece of cloth from one of the carts to cover the pile of bodies. Whether it was a form of dignity or to shield them from the elements, it didn't matter as Ciri could see how tired these soldiers were. The same look was on the faces of the soldiers or refugees who survived the slaughter in Cintra or the second Northern war. That same look of battle fatigue and hatred. It was at that moment a small gilt caught the far corner of her green eyes, directing her attention to one of the wagons being loaded with corpses that they could take back for burial.
Making sure that no one was watching, she approached the second wagon, curiosity getting the better of her. A part of her mind told her to leave it alone and that it was nothing, but a small part of her encouraged the young woman to investigate what it was. Lifting up the tarp, she almost vomited at the state of the bodies. Many of the bodies' clothing was covered in blood and filth, while their wounds were still gushing out the lifeblood that once sustained them.
Without a moment of hesitation, she lifted one of the partially dismembered arms, pulled out the mysterious item from one of the dead soldier's pockets, and dropped the arm, in which she instantly regretted as the man's bone snapped off with a sickening crack. Putting the gray tarp back over the corpse pile, Cir began to examine the item in her right hand, realizing it was some kind of talisman.
The talisman is imprinted with a stylized lion head with a giant mane that looked quite similar to the sun, with a spear in the middle of the background pointing upwards while a fearsome hawk was spreading its wide wings like it was going in for the kill. Thinking that it might come in handy, she put the talisman into her pocket for safekeeping; who knows? It might be worth selling to a traveling merchant who is willing to buy it for a hefty price.
Soon they began moving with all haste, leaving the man-beast corpses after noticing that it was starting to get dark, causing the group to head toward the direction of Templeoff with all haste and hopefully soon. But as they moved on the road, Ciri saw something to her right and noticed a giant green orb in the sky, slowly fading into view as the sun began to set. It was a moon made out of solid green, and if you look closely enough, it has the appearance of a skull. one that hurt her eyes to look at and whose very presence made Ciri ill at ease as the medallion began to shake.
"What world did I get myself into?"
Okay, this story is a prequel to the Witcher and the hammer, detailing Ciri's adventures in the Warhammer world and how Rudolf and Ciri met. You know to clear some things up and Don't worry, am still working on the other one. However, a might need some help with the Warhammer fantasy timeline, along with the season if you don't mind.
Tell me what you think.