A/N: The lesson in this one was hard to nail down. Got stuck editing it more over a month. Regardless, here's a new chapter.

2

"Where you headed?" Geralt asked as he walked across Beacon's courtyard with Qrow.

"Anima," Qrow said, voice rough with lack of sleep. It was early in the morning, the clouds just starting to pink in the pre-dawn light. The students were all asleep and, for some reason, the Huntsman had decided that now was the best time to ship out. "I need to follow a lead on… well. Family matters."

Geralt nodded. "I won't pry," he assured the man. "Good luck."

"Thanks," Qrow muttered. "I could use a bit of that."

Geralt stopped and Qrow passed him, setting his foot onto the bullhead that would take him down to Vale. "Qrow," the Witcher said quickly, before the man could close the door. "Get in touch with me if you find any contracts out there, would you?"

Qrow raised his eyebrow. "Contracts?" he asked wryly. "Doubt anyone's going to be posting notices for a Witcher around Mistral."

"Probably not," Geralt agreed, "but they might need one anyway, and I'm hoping to take the kids out on a… field trip later in the term. Might be educational. Just let me know if you hear about something."

Qrow nodded. "Sounds good," he agreed. "Later, Geralt."

"See you, Qrow," Geralt said, and watched as the Bullhead sealed, blocking the Huntsman from view. He turned away as it took off and made his way back towards the school. He had a class to prepare.

"Alchemy," Geralt said, his vials arrayed before him in a neat row of colored glassware, "is the most… scholarly part of my job. Every other piece of my kit I leave to a professional to do: I leave my weapons to a smith when they need maintenance, I leave my armor to an armorer, but I brew my own formulae. That's partly because good alchemists are hard as hell to come by, where I come from, and partly because some of the formulae Witchers use are either too secret or too toxic to trust to most people."

Ruby raised her hand. Geralt pointed at her. "Ruby?"

"You don't maintain your own weapons?" she burst out.

A smirk crossed his face. "I was hoping to talk to you about weapons, actually," he said. "I could use a few upgrades, and I'm told you know your way around the forge. But that can wait—see me after class, please."

Ruby nodded firmly.

"Good," Geralt said, and gestured over his decanters. "There are three basic types of formulae I use," he said. "Oils, potions, and decoctions. Oils are the ones you should care most about—most of my potions are toxic to humans, and probably faunus, and all the decoctions are poisonous even to me—they'd probably kill any of you outright."

Velvet raised her hand. Geralt gave her a nod.

"You said they're toxic to humans," she said blankly. "Aren't you one?"

Geralt raised his hand and tilted it side to side in a so-so gesture. "Mostly," he said. "Witchers are mutants. We're pumped full of poisons and worse as children in what's called the Trial of the Grasses. We come out either Witchers or dead."

There was a deathly silence. Geralt sighed. "The results of the Trial," he continued more steadily, "leave me, among other things, with these eyes," he gestured at his own face and the slitted pupils that stared out at the students, "an extended lifespan, a more… robust constitution all around, and unable to have children."

"So you have staying power and there's no risk of unwanted surprises?" Coco said with a coy grin on her lips. Beside her, Fox rolled his eyes.

Geralt cocked an eyebrow at her. "You don't want to go here with me," he said lightly. "Because, yes, it does imply exactly what you're thinking, and I've had almost a century to… explore."

Coco actually flushed and looked down.

Geralt grinned and returned to his potions. "I won't go over every decoction," he said, his hand hovering over the largest set of bottles, each with some icon labeled on the glass. "There's too many, and a lot of them are really… esoteric. In general, they give me a long-term boost of some kind—enhanced strength, decreased bloodflow so I won't bleed as much, higher pain threshold, et cetera—but at the cost that they fill my system with a whole lot of poison."

He palmed one bottle and pulled out the stopper. "When I say poison," he said darkly, "I want you to understand what I mean. So. Bottoms up."

He put the bottle to his lips and swallowed the fluid in a single gulp. Grimacing he set it back down. "Shouldn't take too long," he said roughly. "Keep watching."

Even as he spoke, his veins and arteries began to darken and the skin of his face paled, the dark blue and red lines standing starkly against the alabaster. The scar which ran down the left side of his face, across his eye, seemed almost to reopen, growing cherry red and bordered with sickly blue. The skin around his eyes darkened as with exhaustion or bruising.

He gritted his teeth. "Yeah," he muttered. "I need to not do that. Ech."

"That… can't be healthy," Yang said hesitantly.

"Oh, it isn't," Geralt assured her. "It's entirely possible that each time I do this it might shorten my lifespan. But Witchers are long-lived, and they can really help in a fight. So even though I'm not giving you any of my decoctions, let this be a lesson." He stoppered the empty bottle. "Sometimes, a good tool demands a sacrifice. That doesn't make it a bad tool—it makes it a situational one."

He pushed his decoctions over to one side of the desk. "I don't use decoctions often," he said. "Only when I'm up against something I have no business fighting in the first place, really. If I can take an enemy without them, I do. But sometimes, you really need that extra edge. Keep in mind that sometimes a risky or dangerous tool can give you that edge."

"And what if the cost is too high?" Yatsuhashi asked stiffly.

Geralt shrugged. "Then it's too high," he said. "But not every cost is, every time."

The Witcher's fingers hovered over the second set of liquors. "Potions," he said, "are more short-term than decoctions. They usually do something for anywhere from twenty seconds to ten minutes at the most. Like decoctions, these are poisonous—even to me, if a lot less so. I won't be giving these formulae to you."

He picked up a fluted bottle, filled with an orange liquid. "Case in point," he said. "This is Swallow, the single most important potion in my kit. This thing knits up my wounds like a surgeon, even in the middle of a fight. But it's toxic, internally, and worse to humans. I once encountered a woman—comatose, and dying from internal bleeding in her cranial cavity. She was being tended to by her village alchemist, and they'd done all they could; all they could do now was wait for her to die."

Ruby swallowed. Beside her, Weiss looked slightly sick, as did several of the others.

"The herbalist asked if I could help," he said. "I warned her of the possibility of side effects, and she left the choice up to me. I decided to at least try, so I gave the woman a dose of Swallow."

He set the potion down. "It worked," he said slowly. "The woman recovered from the internal bleeding. Swallow did what it was supposed to do. But it had side effects. As far as I know, that woman never opened her eyes again—Swallow left her comatose for life."

Ruby gritted her teeth. "That's horrible," Blake murmured from the seat across from Yang, only just audible to Ruby.

Geralt, having heard it, nodded grimly. "It is," he agreed, "so you're not getting any of these formulae either. But there might be analogous tools available to you, someday, so I'm going to run you through the set."

He picked up a fluted flask with a bright green liquid inside. "This is Thunderbolt," he said.

More potions were introduced. White Raffard's Decoction, Tawny Owl, Golden Oriole, Cat, Blizzard, Full Moon, Petri's Philter, Killer Whale, White Honey, and Maribor's Forest. One vial—a large, blocky thing brimming with a sickly black fluid, he avoided until last.

"This," he said as he lifted it, grimacing, "is Black Blood. Not something I expect any of you to ever need an analogue for, but if you're curious, it makes my blood poisonous to monsters that drink it—vampires, necrophages, and the—"

"Wait," said Jaune, starting. "Vampires?"

Geralt nodded looking at him. "Yeah," he said. "Do their legends survive, around here? Not every monster's do."

"Uh, yeah," Jaune said nervously. "They, um, they exist?"

Geralt nodded. "They do," he said. "They're sapient—the higher varieties, at least—and are really just people, in a lot of ways. Some're bad—I've fought a fair few of those—and some aren't. A good friend of mine is one of those; might just visit next time Ciri drops by."

Jaune blinked. "…Oh," he said blankly.

Geralt rolled his eyes. "The lesson on vampires is later, kid," he said. "Don't worry, it's coming."

He put down Black Blood. "Now, oils are a lot more straightforward than decoctions or potions," he said, glancing at the clock, "so I'll just give an overview. They're the simplest tool I have, and they're also one of the ones I use most. I apply a blade oil to my steel or silver sword, and it becomes poisonous to a particular type of enemy. Hanged Man's Venom, for instance," he said, raising one flask in green, "is toxic to humanoids. I haven't tried with faunus, but it should work." He considered for a moment. "Beast oil might work on Faunus too. I'll have to test, when I go up against a faunus."

Ren raised his hands. Geralt gestured for him to speak. "How is it," he asked, "that you've seemingly never fought a faunus before?"

"I come from… a long way away," Geralt said slowly. "It's a little complicated. Suffice to say, there weren't any faunus back there. This is why you haven't heard of Witchers or a lot of the monsters in the bestiary. At some point, I'll explain the details, but not yet. Things are a little… unstable right now."

Ren narrowed his eyes, but nodded, satisfied.

Yatsuhashi raised his hand then, looking at Velvet. "Professor—" he said.

"Geralt," Geralt corrected sharply.

Yatsuhashi's face hardened. "Why should faunus be affected by something called beast oil?" he asked stiffly.

Geralt sighed. "Because, short version," he said, "I know next to nothing about faunus biology. Beast oil works on most non-human animals which aren't monsters—allergic to silver. Faunus have animal traits, but does that make them actually part animal? I've no idea. That's why I need to test it."

"So it's not…" Velvet said hesitantly. "…Not because we're…"

"Kid," Geralt said dryly, "I just told you one of my best friends is a vampire. I'm a mutant human treated worse than the monsters I hunt in some parts of the world. I think I know better than to judge you by an extra pair of ears."

Velvet looked down embarrassedly. Yatsuhashi looked back at her, then at Geralt, and then returned his gaze to his notes.

Geralt looked back at the oils. "Moving on," he said, "I keep a blade oil for every type of monster in the bestiary. A blade oil is a small thing, and it doesn't make a huge difference all at once, but it costs nothing to use but a bit of prep time, and little things like that can make or break a fight. Not everything has to be complex or situational—keep your eyes open for simple, elegant solutions."

He nodded at one—a sickly black thing on the edge of the table. "I'm currently developing an oil for the Grimm," he said. "Once I get it to work, I'll make sure Beacon is stocked."

He started putting bottles back into their places on the strap across his chest. "We're running low on time," he said, glancing at the clock on the wall, "but we have just enough time for me to cover the Signs in basic. There are seven Signs in the Witcher's… spellbook, I guess. Don't ask how they work right now, because I still have to test some things about how they interact with Aura. The Signs are as follows:"

Geralt withdrew to the chalkboard and drew one sigil after another on the black rectangle. As he completed each pictogram, he recited. "Aard, Igni, Yrden, Quen, Axii, Somne, and Heliotrop. Coco, I used three of them on you, and Team RWBY saw me use one more at the end of last semester."

He turned back to them. "A demonstration," he said, producing a small rubber ball from a pocket. "Heliotrop I can't easily demonstrate—it only works on energy attacks, I guess, and I don't want to risk blowing something up with Dust. But, for the others: watch." He tossed the ball into the air before him with his right hand, even as his left moved intricately. "Aard!"

The ball flew away from him as if pushed by Pyrrha's strongest magnetism, bouncing hard off of the back wall behind the students even as they started. Jaune ducked as though to avoid the projectile.

Geralt caught the ball deftly in one hand, then tossed it to Nora. "I want you," he said, "to throw that thing as hard as you can at me, when I give the word. Give me just a minute to recover."

Nora smiled wickedly.

After a moment, Geralt sighed. "All right," he said. "When you're ready."

Nora's arm wound back and let fly, hard, with the ball. Geralt's arm came up, his fingers splayed into an odd shape, with a speed matched only by trained Huntsmen. "Quen!"

The ball glanced off of the golden barrier that appeared around Geralt in a sphere even as he winced, as if the wind were knocked out of him. "Signs take a lot out of me," he said. "I recover fast, though. All right. Who caught it?"

Yatsuhashi held up the ball. Geralt held up a hand and the large student tossed the orb back to him. "The other five signs need a different demonstration," the Witcher said. "First." He glanced over at his desk, and at a candle that had sat idle for the whole of the class. His fingers moved again. "Igni."

There was a burst of flame, both between his fingers and on the wick, and the candle was alight.

"For the other three, I need a volunteer," Geralt said. "Probably not Coco—she's been on the receiving end of one of these already."

Ruby stood up. Geralt nodded at her. "You're actually a good fit for one of these," he said. "I'm curious to see if it works. Come on down, Ruby."

She padded down the stairs to join him.

"First," he said, nodding towards the doorway. "Go to that side of the room, please. I'm going to have you run across the room towards the opposite wall, as fast as you can, without your semblance."

Ruby nodded and jogged over to the door, then turned back.

"Whenever you're ready," Geralt said.

Ruby ran, but Geralt was falling into a kneel. "Yrden!"

She entered the circle of glyphs just as it appeared and it was like the air had become molasses. She found she could not force her limbs to move faster than a crawl. Geralt, however, had no such difficulty, simply padding over to her and watching with some amusement as she strained to move faster.

He paced beside her until she eventually broke out of the circle, reached the wall, and glared at him. "That was mean," she said.

He chuckled. "Yrden is a trap," he said. "Has a few uses, but that's the big one. Now, I want to try that with your Semblance, but it can wait. First." He raised his left hand before she could say a word and moved his fingers. "Axii."

The world seemed to fade away into a fog. Ruby couldn't think, couldn't remember what she was doing there, where she was, how she'd come to be in this place.

She felt a gentle shove to her shoulder, but was somehow unsteady enough that even the slight push sent her stumbling back into the wall. She blinked, shook her head, and the world came back into focus.

"Axii," Geralt said darkly, "is the most… questionable… of my Signs. As you saw, it can really muddle your mind. If I put everything into it, though? I can make someone think the sky is green, or that I did pay for the jewelry I stole… or that his teammate, beside him, is his mortal enemy."

Ruby stared at him, aghast. "That's horrible," she whispered.

Geralt nodded. "But useful," he said shortly. "A tool is a tool. What matters is how you use it. On that topic, my least-used Sign." He turned to the class at large. "Yang," he said after a moment. "Your head can take a hit, right?"

Yang grinned. "You know it," she said cockily.

"Good," Geralt said, raising his hand in another gesture. "Somne."

Yang's head thudded to the table, snoring.

"Puts people out like a light," Geralt said cheerfully, even as Blake and a few others around the class giggled slightly. "She should wake up in a few minutes, in time for her next class." He turned to Ruby. "You can go back to your seat," he told her. "Thanks for the help."

Ruby nodded and scampered back.

"Now, homework," he said. "You have five days for this assignment, and it shouldn't take you that long. I want each of you to find something—it can be anything at all—that you could use as a viable tool to add to your kit, and to write up a scenario in which it would be useful. You'll be presenting your tools and your reasoning in class next Monday. Bonus points if you can provide a recording or an account of a spar in which you used your new tool. Someone tell Yang."

The bell rang just as he finished speaking. "Class dismissed," he said, slipping his last decoction away.

Ruby stood up and slid past Weiss' seat into the walkway. She padded down the steps to the stage again.

Geralt gave her a nod. "How long have you got before your next class?" he asked.

Ruby shrugged. "Two hours," she said. "I need to get breakfast in the dining hall at some point, though."

Geralt nodded. "You go eat," he said. "I need to flush this decoction out of my system anyway. When are you free for a few hours?"

Ruby considered. "I finish classes at three," she said. "Are you busy then?"

Geralt shook his head. "No," he replied. "That sounds fine. Where should I meet you for the weapon work, Beacon's foundry?"

Ruby winced. "Beacon doesn't have the best forge," she said, "but I guess it's easier than going all the way to Vale. We can start there this afternoon, and if you need something better we can meet in Vale over the weekend?"

Geralt nodded. "Sure," he said. "We can test your Semblance with Yrden then, too. Thanks, Ruby."

"Don't mention it," she smiled, and returned to her team.

"Does anyone else feel like Geralt's class is rather… aimless?" Weiss asked tentatively over dinner.

Pyrrha, sitting with her team across from RWBY, nodded. A faint frown graced her lips. "He's spent the first two lectures on nothing but his own toolkit," she said. "And while it has been enlightening, it's not especially useful to us, is it? It's not as though we can use most of his tools."

"I think it's leading into something," Blake offered. "He's gone through all of it, now. He's probably got something in mind for Friday."

Ruby nodded. "I think you're right," she said to Blake. "Besides, it's good to know at least what kinds of tools he uses just so that we can see how broad his kit is." She chuckled wryly. "Has anyone else started feeling… I don't know, inadequate, in his class?"

Jaune raised his hand. "But, to be fair," he added, "it's me."

Pyrrha nudged him. "Don't be so hard on yourself, Jaune," she said gently. "You've improved by leaps and bounds, you know that."

"Yeah," Jaune sighed. "Still playing catch-up, though."

"Jaune," Ruby said gently, "we saw Geralt in action last semester, remember? Believe me—we're all playing catch-up."

"On that topic," Yang said grimly, "Remind me to get some silver shells for Ember Celica, all right? I really never want to be caught by one of those… things without some."

"Same here," Blake murmured with a faint shudder. "We should modify all our weapons, probably. Weiss, how would you go about adding silver to Myrtenaster?"

"I suppose I could just coat the blade," Weiss said doubtfully. "It seems a waste, though."

"Silver dust?" Ruby suggested. "You could use an extra chamber of silver dust in the cartridge like you use the, um, actual Dust now."

Weiss nodded. "That could work."

"Geralt and I are going to meet at a forge in Vale on Saturday," Ruby said. "We can make it a team thing and modify our weapons then?"

"Is it really important?" Pyrrha asked. "I've never heard of a Huntsman with silver weapons before."

Ruby tilted her head back and forth unhappily. "I don't think most people encounter, well, monsters," she said. "They're rare. But… well. Mom did."

Yang put her hand on her shoulder. "And they're not like the Grimm," she said darkly. "I couldn't have just punched my way through that thing Geralt fought."

"Precisely," Weiss said. "I'd certainly rather have silver, and never need it, than need it and not have it."

"True," Ren agreed. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to have a couple of silver magazines for Stormflower."

"Maybe I can get Geralt to give me the formula for his silver bombs?" Nora wondered aloud.

"So, people have been going missing?" Summer asked, nimbly avoiding a stumbling drunk as he ambled past them on his way out of the bar.

"Yeah," said the innkeeper as he wiped down a filthy mug with an even filthier cloth. "Parents don't let their kids even a few trees into the woods anymore because of it. It's probably Grimm; a few corpses been found. Glad a Huntress happened by. Think you can do something about it?"

"Maybe," Summer hedged. "Need to know a little more, first. You said it started… when?"

The man frowned, considering. "A few months back, I guess," he said slowly. "I think it started with… yeah, my friend Maurice's… brother-in-law, was it? Went into the woods to chop some firewood, didn't come back. Search party found his body, looked like it'd been torn apart by something."

"Any idea what kind of something?" Summer asked, leaning forward on the bar.

The man shook his head. Then stopped. "Well," he considered. "Garnalls—he's a friend of mine, was in the search party—told me a bit. I think he said something about little Nevermores? You might want to ask him. He lives three houses down from here, towards the river."

Summer nodded and pushed off the stained wood of the bar. "Thanks," she said. "I'll do that. So long."

She left the bar and inhaled deeply of the night air. This far north of Vale proper, in Forever Fall, the breeze tasted clean and cool, untouched by the pollution of Dust processing and mechanization. A faint scent of fruit permeated the air, heralding the coming of autumn and the harvest.

Her silver eyes scanned the houses around the tavern, picked out the one the barman had mentioned. She crossed over to it, Pinprick swaying in its sheath at her side. She passed over the well-kept garden and knocked twice at the door.

A woman opened it—pretty, if not young. A little older than Summer. (Or, well, perhaps not anymore. Twelve years was a bit of a jump, even if she hadn't seemed to age.)

"Hi," she said with a smile. "I'm looking for a Mr. Garnalls? I was told he lived here."

The woman blinked at her. "You a Huntress?" she asked, eyeing the hilt of Pinprick, poking out from under Summer's white cloak. "Here after the Grimm in the woods?"

Summer nodded. "Yep," she said soothingly. "I just need to talk to Garnalls about the body he found. He was in the search party that found the first man, wasn't he?"

"That he was," the woman said, nodding, then turned. "Garn, Huntress here to speak to you! Says it's about poor old Az."

There were footsteps in the hall and a man emerged, from a door, light streaming out from behind him. He shut that door behind him and approached, his brown eyes wide to see in the half-light. "Huntress?" he asked. "Is that so? Good to see one of you finally came by. You can take care of this, can't you?"

"Well, that's my job," Summer said. "So, this… Az. He was the first one to die?"

"He's how we found out there were Grimm in the forest, yeah," said Garnells, nodding. "When I found him, he'd been… ugh. It's hard to talk about it." He shuddered.

"I need to know what kind of Grimm I might be up against," Summer said gently. "Beowolves leave different kinds of wounds than, say, a King Taijitu would. I'm sorry but… can you describe his injuries?"

Garnells swallowed. "Sure, sure," he said gruffly. "Wouldn't want you to get hurt because you didn't know what you were facing. Let me see. He, uh, he'd been scratched up pretty bad. Little cuts, like from a razor. At least, the bits that hadn't been… mauled. Looked like he'd be stabbed, too—or more like holes had been bored into him by a drill."

"How deep?" Summer asked, expecting the answer.

"About half an inch, at most," the man said in confirmation.

"Thank you," she said, smiling gently. "You've been very helpful. I won't keep you any longer… and I'm sorry for making you relive that."

He shook his head. "Just… get rid of those monsters, please," he said fervently.

"I'll do everything I can," she promised, and left.

Small scratches, and half-inch stab wounds? That sounded like the work of small Nevermores… except that small Nevermores weren't hostile except in groups with larger Grimm, and none of the larger Grimm would have been content to wait out in a forest for this long without either attacking or moving on. Something didn't add up.

Something was squatting in a forest near a settlement in northern Forever Fall, killing people with small Nevermores or, more likely, birds of some other kind. And she had a strong feeling it wasn't a Grimm of any sort at all.

She smiled and made her way back towards the tavern and the room she'd rented for the night. She'd call Geralt in the morning.

"How go the experiments, Geralt?" Ozpin asked, slipping into the Witcher's office quietly.

The pre-dawn grey light streamed in through the window, barely enough to see by. Geralt had augmented it with a lamp on his desk, which beamed light onto the notes strewn across the surface. He sat hunched over them, occasionally glancing over at a counter by the wall where rested several bowls of various herbs and fluids.

The Witcher shook his head. "Not that well," he said. "Grimm dissolve, which makes it hard to test anything with their flesh. I'll need live specimens at some point, preferably something larger than a minor Nevermore."

"That can be arranged, I'm sure," Ozpin said easily. "We can make it a field trip. I'm sure you've heard of the biannual excursion into Forever Fall for sap."

"Heard about how it almost ended in catastrophe last time," Geralt said, glancing at the headmaster.

"Oh, it often does," Ozpin chuckled. "It's a good way to ease the students into the tension of the job, I find. We've yet to have anything worse than a few broken bones, easily set."

Geralt shook his head. "Maybe I'll take one or more of the teams out to catch some Grimm later," he said. "No promises. I—"

His scroll, issued to him before the semester began, chimed an incoming call from its resting place on the surface of the desk beside the notes. Geralt palmed it and accepted the call.

"Summer," he greeted the white-hooded woman on the other end as the visual connected.

"Geralt," she said, smiling. "How are you doing?"

"Fine," he said. "Still can't make any progress of the Grimm oil, though. You?"

"I found something," she said, her smile fading slightly. "I'm in a little town near a thicker part of the Forever Fall forests, and people have been disappearing. I don't think it's a Grimm."

Geralt's eyes narrowed. "What makes you say that?" he asked.

"The bodies have been scratched and pecked apart, as well as being torn to bits by bigger things," she said slowly. "But… well, a body turned up in the middle of the night, so I got to see it firsthand. Whatever jaws bit into this were too small to be a Beowolf, and the birds were too small to be any Grimm but a minor Nevermore. Except Minor Nevermores aren't usually aggressive."

Geralts eyes shut. "Wolves and crows," he said quietly.

"You know what it is?" Summer asked.

"I do," he said darkly. "I've got plans to go to the forge with your daughter on Saturday, Summer, but I'll head out after that."

"Can this wait a week?" Ozpin asked quickly.

Geralt glanced at him. "Why?" he asked.

"Because I'd like you to take a team with you," the headmaster said simply. "And they should be allowed to know in advance."

Geralt stared at him for a moment. "That thing's a leshen," he said slowly. "One of the most dangerous monsters in the bestiary. Are you insane?"

"They'll have you," Ozpin said. "Order them to hang back. It will be valuable experience."

Geralt gritted his teeth. "True," he acknowledged. "I'll think about it."

"That's all I ask," Ozpin said.

Geralt turned back to Summer. "Keep people out of those woods," he said firmly. "And don't go in yourself. Leshens usually can't be killed conventionally. I'll let you know soon when I plan to come."

Summer nodded. "I'll set up a perimeter," she promised. "See you soon, Geralt."

"Later, Summer."

A/N: That's that. Reviews are, as always, appreciated but not solicited. Everyone is welcome to join the public discussion over at the spacebattles thread.

I finished Hearts of Stone while working on this chapter, and I'm working through Blood and Wine now. Having finished HoS, I can now definitely say that it is canon to this story. Blood and Wine, I still don't know.