This story is set somewhere between the short stories from the first two books, before the Saga starts. Just a bit of friendhisp and silliness.
Shitty contract
Decorum, thought Geralt, led to trouble more often than not. Titles, manners, proper tone... It was easy to get lost and go to a dead end despite one's best efforts. However, some of those good manners were the basis of the functioning of the society and keeping resemblance of order in this world. And because the witcher had scruples, he did take that shitty contract. Literally shitty.
Said contract was about a privy. The first time Geralt heard about it in the inn, he snorted into his ale and told the villager off, asking him to come back once he had sobered. His purse was getting dangerously empty, but he was not yet desperate enough to listen to such nonsense.
But then the witcher heard the same story from a group of regular visitors, from the innkeeper and the miller's wife who was whining about something by the counter. The monster, they all claimed, pinched the backsides and touched them with something slimy. It would even bite the slowest victims. One of the villagers was eager to present the marks on his butt in front of everyone.
Geralt took his word for that.
"You probably have a rat in there," he shrugged, but the people started shouting at him that they were decent folk and they came to him, the wither, asking to solve their problem, and that he was supposed to protect them from all monstrosities. Geralt had at least one more day of waiting for Dandelion, so agreed to take a closer look both out of boredom and to get some peace.
This was how the witcher ended up spending the next night going back and forth the latrine, feeling like a fool. He checked the whole area, he looked inside and found a good hiding spot... And nothing. He repeated his actions at random intervals, sometimes going as far as pretending to be a drunken inn guest going to fulfil his needs. He saw nothing, not even half of a tentacle. The only beings he met were a few lost flies and some annoying mosquitoes.
The only bright aspect in that was that his frequent trips to the privy were not caused by the dubiously fresh meat from the stew he had eaten. It meant either that the local folk suffered from some collective hallucination, or the latrine terror was smart enough to sense the danger and didn't intend to lurk out in the presence of a witcher.
Geralt returned to his room at dawn, annoyed and cold, with the overwhelming feeling of pointlessness of his cause. He had picked that contract and it wasn't in his nature to give up without at least finding the source of trouble.
xxx
"A privy monster? What kind of nonsense is that? Geralt, please have mercy!" Dandelion placed his mug on the table, sloshing his drink.
"You don't say," muttered the witcher.
They were sitting over a late breakfast. The poet had reached the town at noon, cursing the bad weather and the mud on his clothes. To lift his spirits, they ordered a rich meal, a courtesy of the bard's funds.
"What made you pick that commission?" Dandelion put more scrambled eggs on his plate. "No, don't answer that. I don't want to know."
"And what was I supposed to do, waiting for you in this gods-forsaken place?" Geralt emptied the pan. "You wouldn't even find a drowner in a pond here, not to mention anything more dangerous."
"Just mysterious toilet monster. Splendid. And what? You wasted the whole night hunting it?" The bard shook his head in astonishment. Then another thought seemed to cross his mind. "Hey, what if it comes out only when someone sits to satisfy their primary needs?"
The witcher smiled ugly.
"You know, you might be right."
xxx
Dandelion lost a bet.
"Geralt, you do realise this is kind of awkward?" he said from behind the wooden doors.
"Shut it, Dandelion. As if I didn't meet you with your pants down your ankles, running from the brothers of your girl of choice at that time," Geralt snorted from his spot.
"How dare you?! It is not my fault that the uglier part of the society is so indifferent to pleasing the nicer part, especially when said part desires so," the poet huffed in annoyance.
"Do you even remember her name?" The silence on the other side was an answer itself. "Don't talk, just do your part."
Silence fell over the latrine. Geralt still felt idiotic, but at least he wasn't feeling idiotic alone anymore. And, as it turned out, he didn't have to wait too long.
"Ge-Geralt? Oh for the love of-"
The wooden door with a heart-shaped hole snapped open and almost fell from the hinges. Dandelion, visibly paled, darted outside, dragging his pants up.
"Shit!"
Geralt didn't listen. He ran into the latrine just in time to grab a slimy tentacle sticking out from the hole. He pierced it with his dagger, fastened his grip and dragged the monster with a disgusting splash. They both fell outside the narrow privy. The monster was tiny, not larger than a dog, and seemed shapeless. The clammy body slipped through Geralt's hands, its tentacles trying to wrap around his arm. The witcher tossed it on the ground and reached for his sword, finally having enough space to do that.
Just like he predicted, once the monster was dragged from its natural environment, it stood no chance in the open space. It was neither quick nor agile. The witcher's steel blade cut it like butter; Geralt saw no need to stain the silver blade. The tentacles shook convulsively and went still.
Dandelion, per usual, regained his speech quite quickly.
"Ugh, it's so ugly. Geralt, what the hell is that?"
"I have absolutely no idea," admitted the witcher, wiping his hands and his sword against the grass with disgust. "I have never seen something like this. I guess something mixed and mutated again."
"Shitty town, shitty monster," Dandelion summed up defiantly.
Geralt did not point out he had just been running from this shitty monster like it was a wyvern at least. Part of him was still surprised there was actually something living in that latrine, something more than a result of a vivid imagination of the villagers or a drunken vision of the inn's guests.
"Geralt, look," the poet paled and pointed at the monster's mouth, surprisingly wide and toothy. "But, but it could easily..."
"Nobody said it threatened anyone's masculinity."
"Because maybe it didn't have enough time?! What if I wasn't fast enough?!"
"Then it's good you've got enough practice," Geralt snorted and patted his friend's shoulder. "Alright, let's leave this hideous thing here, let the innkeeper do with it whatever he wants. No point in disgusting everybody inside."
"Easy for you to say!"
"Come now. The ale is quite good here. Drink's on me."
xxx
"Innkeeper! Drinks!"
Geralt did pay, though not for an ale. Dandelion demanded something stronger after such traumatic events, so they got a bottle of vodka.
"I'm waiting for some rhymes about our newest adventure," the witcher toasted to his friend. "Not your usual theme of choice, is it?"
"We are not going back to that," stated the bard. "Not ever," he gulped his shot and shook his head.
"What?" Geralt laughed and refilled Dandelion's cup. "No ballad about the brave poet who saved the local folk from monstrosity?"
"Oh, get lost!" Dandelion emptied his cup again. "Innkeeper! Bring us some food as well!"
"Best not," the witcher stopped him. "Unless you want to run to that privy again."
The bard hastily pushed his plate away.