Interlude - Geralt of Rivia
"Still recognizable Griffons; young, fledgling almost. Feathers haven't even finished developing, still fluffy and soft. Probably just paired off, searching for a nest. Blunt tramma to the skull, beaks torn off... used to beat it to death? Second one is missing its heart, just like that Cockatrice. Claws are pretty torn up too, couldn't harm whatever they was attacking... died pretty fast, looks like the mutilations were mostly made after their death. Nice, clean cut, deep - oddly curved. Whoever did this did it with their hands..." Geralt murmured, shoving the young griffons body over. Its underbelly was torn up, a mess of torn out flesh and organs, its ribs removed. Not torn out, or shattered - simply missing. Using a small Igni flame to illuminate the Griffins guts, he could even see how the bones had been carefully removed from the spine.
"Organs were scooped out, not with any particular care to use them; they were piled up... over there. Ghouls got to it, was enough to keep them from picking that much off of the body's." Geralt finished, standing and frowning. This... only painted a further, more confusing image for him.
5 days ago, he had been riding out of White Orchard, the bounty for slaying the Royal Griffon - and more importantly, information on Yennefer's location - in hand, Geralt had ridden forward alone. Vesimer had departed days earlier, to return to Kaer Mohran for the winter, whining of his old bones, and thusly Geralt had quested onward. However, his plans had momentarily... changed when, in the middle of the night, a group of peasants from a dozen different nearby villages had managed to track him down... begging for his help, screaming of a Silver Wraith. They had offered money, of course - for as every peasant knew, no Witcher would lay a finger without being offered coin. Just as their mum's would sing it.
And Geralt had never seen quite so much of it offered up on any single creature before. Thousands of Crowns, taken from several dozen different scared, desperate villages. Even if he hadn't asked for more information, he would've accept anyway - his coffer never stopped rattling, so to say. He had, of course, asked for more information on the 'Silver Wraith', for such a thing didn't exist. A case of misinformation and a lack of education often made a Witcher's job... far more difficult.
So he had listened to frantic please and requests, of how this specter would walk from village to village, calling and asking to be heard, to be spoken to and learn of the land he walked. His face remained hooded, a endless darkness making up any semblance of human familiarity one might hope to find. His robes would vary from Bloody to Various, and it was always - always - a sign of his presence when Cats began to appear. Most importantly however, and what had Villagers so panicked, were his 'gifts'.
The first place he had appeared was a small village with a forgotten; he had spoken, given the same speech all the others had reported him as giving, and from his blue bag left several items behind. Scared, villagers had accepted it, and prepared to flee or hire a Witcher.
The survivors were barely able to speak, they were so traumatized. A dozen different Wraiths and Necrophages had laid siege to the town shortly after had had left, and if one traumatized young man was to be believed, a Dragon had burnt the town to the ground. News of this town had spread, and thereafter all of his 'gifts' were thrown far, far away or burned, and all the villages visited had therefore stood.
Investigating the town later on had certainly showed it to be burned to rubble, monsters still inhabiting it. Not aching for a fight at the time, Geralt had left to seek out what might easily could have been this 'Wraith''s source.
5 days ago, mere hours before his first appearance, a shooting star had been reported, a bright red comet that had come crashing to the earth. Some peasants had investigated it at the time, and found the corpse of a ghoul, a pile of bones that had been a hermit, and a ransacked house. This is what had caught Geralt's interest, guaranteed he had taken the contract. A mysterious monster who killed for what seemed like fun, appearing after a comet passed through the sky?
The signs of the Wild Hunt. It had certainly been long enough since they had last been seen, and when combined with his recent dreams of Ciri...
Geralt had simply trusted his heart.
Riding onward almost immediately, facts had only grown more muddled from there on out. The man had not been killed by this 'wraith', who matched no monster Geralt had ever seen or heard ofs description, but by ghouls - picked clean weeks ago. He had found tracks in the dirt, and followed them, hoping to pick up a trail to some kind of lair he hadn't found at the first village the Silver Wraith - far better to simply call it that, without sarcastic quotation - but instead, he had found the dead body of a Basilisk, torn apart by ghouls and killed via having its heart torn out.
Riding onward, he had found the griffons. Riding further, faster, eventually not even stopping to investigate the bodies... for their were so, so many of them, each more concerning than the last with every implication their dead body's held, and every question they raised. Everything here simply boggled Geralts mind.
"Or maybe I'm just finally going Senile, eh Roach? Just talking aloud to a horse, trying to puzzle things out? " Geralt muttered, scratching the ear of his trusted steed. Whatever the exact circumstancse of this confusing contract were, Geralt knew one thing.
He would find this Silver Wraith, and have some very choice questions to ask it... with both blade and tongue.