West of Occupied Dorian, North-West Division of Occupied Temeria
"Hmm, winds howling." Geralt of Rivia, witcher, muttered to his companion. The witcher's cat eyes scanned the horizon, taking in the sight of the bog that dominated the landscape west of the city of Dorian.
Geralt sniffed, trying in vain to cleanse the lingering smell of soot from his nostrils. That and the overwhelmingly rank odor of rotting flesh.
"Mmhmm." Vesemir sounded his agreement, standing up from the patch of grass he had been examining. Vesemir dusted his hands off on his trousers and pulled back on his thick leather gloves, the pair that had knuckle spikes sewn into the leather.
"Well wolf, I've never seen anything like this." He observed.
"I was afraid you'd say that." Geralt admitted.
The pair of witchers, masters of their trade and with a combined three hundred years of experience with the arcane, occult and the monster, once again looked over the impossible sight before them. Resting on the bottom of the hill they were standing on laid a mass of rotting flesh.
The dead beast had begun to rot at an incredible rate, Geralt surmised. It has only been two days and a night since he and Vesemir had been alerted to the relic's death. Already, slabs of flesh were sloughing off the skeleton every other hour as the rot progressed.
The patches of thick coarse fur on the relict's shoulder smelled of mildew and puss. The two deer shaped eyes looked to have disappeared from their sockets. The flesh on the beast's canine-like snout had retreated up to the base of the lower eye sockets, leaving residue of black sludge along the white bone.
But the great cyclopean third eye of the fiend was still easily identifiable, but Geralt judged that the decay would overtake it by nightfall, some two hours away he judged.
"This is the third one we've found in less than a fortnight." Geralt commented, frowning down at the fiend's corpse. "The calcified leshen on the border of Brokolin, the exfoliated chort near Brugge and now this."
Vesemir nodded along, rubbing at his chin in thought as he did so. "I've heard tales of monsters dying that I thought had died out years ago. We used to think that chorts were extinct along the Ribbon. Clearly we were wrong."
Geralt grunted. "And it's all tied back to whatever happened on that night."
The pair of witchers had been sleeping along the road that night, when they had both been forcefully jerked awake, and it felt like Geralt had just drank a whole vate of Thunderbolt potion. Their medallions were jumping around in a way that Geralt could only remember happening when multiple mages were engaged in combat. Or
"Indeed," Vesemir opined. "And whatever it was isn't just striking at relics. That pair of merchants from Gors Velen said that the shore is completely covered in drowner corpses, all washing in near complete decay. Sailors said that they saw whole flocks of harpies and sirens drop from the air, struck dead. No skelligan traders or raiders have made port since the event."
Vesemir went silent and Geralt picked up, laying out more of the evidence. "Woods witches, seers, amatuer alchemists, fortune tellers and pellars alike all start preaching about the end times, half of them going mad and killing themselves in their madness. Roosters lay eggs. Milk curdles straight out of the cow. Water from the well is black as the night. Grave hags rampage day and night, gorging themselves on the flesh of the dead without regard for their own safety."
"Assuming half of those are simple peasant superstitions and therefore didn't happen. We're still left with something clearly happening that has a lethal effect on the magical." Vesemir wrapped up.
"Yet we've heard nothing from places deeper inland, suggesting that the event took place out in the sea, or at least away from the coast."
"Aretruza's wards finally overload and detonate?" Geralt suggested. The academy's enchantments had been untended for months, at least.
Vesemir shook his head, bushy white eyebrows burrowed in thought. "The mages would have already done that themselves during Radovid's attack if they knew what the result would be."
"Out near Skellige then."
"Mmhmm, possibly. We just don't know enough wolf."
Geralt's whistle pierced the cloying silence that death so often brought with it. Roach trotted over to him, Vesemir's own steed following along.
"Guess this means we need a mage's opinion before drawing conclusions." He said, swinging up onto Roach's saddle. Geralt noted with annoyance that he had to swipe away stray hairs that had fallen out of place. He needed a haircut. "Yen has an account opened at Dorian's bank, we should check there for anything she might have left us."
Geralt had been on the trail of Yennefer of Vengerberg, a woman who he constantly had different feelings about, for close to four months now. After Loc Muinne he had been wandering aimlessly at first but following a rumor in Aedern had him cutting back into Temeria where he reunited with Vesemir. The two witchers had journeyed the breadth of Temeria, searching every sighting and following every rumor that hinted at the location of the woman who smelled of lilac and gooseberries.
The city of Dorian, recently fallen to a Nilfgaard assault, was a beacon that had drawn the witchers north.
"Maybe she'll be in a grateful mood when we find her and be helpful for once." Vesemir said as the two men rode off back towards the roadside tavern they were lodging at. Geralt decided to leave the reassurance of the owners, who had sent the witchers in this direction, to Vesemir. He was never any good at that part.
"Yen? Helpful?" Geralt asked with amusement. Vesemir sighed.
"I can dream Geralt, I can dream."
The witchers made it down to the road and set off at a trot.
"Especially considering that this search seems to be taking us closer and closer to the front."
Geralt nodded but said nothing. It was a risk he was willing to take. Yen drew trouble like a lodestone and Geralt would bet good money that he didn't have that they had a better chance of finding her the closer they were to trouble themselves.
"We'll be fine if we avoid Vizima." He assured Vesemir.
"It's not just around Vizima that we'll find trouble. Those merchants from Gors Velen also told me that whole regiments were being disbanded from combat footing and sent into occupied land as guerillas and to organize insurgents to fight the occupation." Vesemir informed Geralt.
"We hardly look like Black Ones Vesemir."
"No but in times like these that rarely matters."
Geralt couldn't argue with that, so he fell silent and turned his thoughts toward Yennefer and memories long past. Night was falling and it would be another night under a roof for the pair of witchers.
Dorian would have to wait for tomorrow.
Dear friend,
Forgive me for not asking about your health or how you have been these last years. Time is very short.
I have important news. We must meet, and soon. Ride to Willoughby, near Vizima, and don't spare the horses - while I do eagerly await our reunion, I won't be able to wait, eagerly or otherwise, very long.
Your dear friend,
Yennefer.
P.S. I still have the unicorn.
AN - a short one, but I wanted to do a check up on our pair of witchers before going back to Talion on the mount, and make it clear that the main plot is still on track. This is obviously a couple of weeks after Talion reforges the Ring and as you can see the effects are strongly felt even in places far away from Skellige. Though the magical effects of the forging are limited - so monsters aren't going to just drop dead all over the continent because of Talion's actions.