Index
SolsticeGelan Verified Content Creator? Nobody's MemoriesChapter 11 - It isn't a dastardly plot!
"Sometimes, I make bad choices. No one could argue against that statement, and though I had always regretted making them (up until I completely forgot I made them), I could count on one hand the number of times I would ever want to change or fix my mistakes. Mostly because they were exceptionally large mistakes, but the point still stands. It was a part of human nature to make them, to be driven by your emotions. To let them drive your choices."
"As established, that wasn't exactly something I could do more than pretend to be capable of."
'As established, it was also very, very stupid of me to keep bringing it up."
"But regardless, I feel fairly confident that my current plan isn't a bad one. Granted, I had made changes to it several times, mostly after my little 'revelation', but it would be more than enough to get me started. now, my plan is a simple one, yet one I could easily mess up. It had been easy enough to start on as well, and despite waiting an arbitrary amount of time to act upon my plan, the time had been needed."
"Now, what exactly is my plan?"
"Well, to explain that, I needed to go back in time a bit. When I had also found the map of the Continent in some Bandit's den, it had been in last camp I had deigned to clear for the night. I'm sure you remember it. Rather than decide to simply send it all through a gateway back to the Lootcave, I had decided to go through everything there and then shove it all into a pile. That same night that I found a quit excellent mahogany table, which isn't even remotely important, but I did lay the map out on it when I first found it. Relevant, I say!'
" So there I was, happy to finally have a map in some form of more than the local countryside, pulling out my journal and comparing all my notes of this and that to what was there so far when I realized exactly how close the old windmill the Bandits had been camped out in was to a city. Barely a day's walk, and juuuuuuust far enough away from the main road that they would be overlooked by guards but they themselves wouldn't have inconvenienced themselves in their attempts to get to the road in the first place. Well, a day's walk for me with my time dilation Bullshit, a day and a half on horseback. They even had this little note detailing their plan to try and make anyone who came to investigate think that there were several different gangs coming at different times to this one spot off near a crossroads instead of just them."
"Now, broaching away from these bandits unfortunate enough to be incapable of hiding themselves to me, and back to my plan! By that point I had obviously figured out exactly how terrifying I look. I make an effort to keep my impeccably unstainable robes dry of blood and gore now, but for the first few days, not really. Eventually, even after cleaning it, I had decided to figure out why everyone kept running from me. It took me exactly five seconds until I realized exactly how terrifying I looked to random villagers and farmers who spent their life never seeing a monster up until their untimely demise, and who were quoted as 'Not getting out of the sun at noon to avoid the heat, but the Noonwraiths.', tended to not be very reasonable when I attempted to tempt them out of their homes for good reason."
"They're raised on folklore, superstition, legend, and stories of some poor, random Sod getting violently torn apart and eaten alive by monsters. Why should they trust a man soaked in bloody or pristine robes screaming at the top of his lungs and followed by cats? So then, logical conclusion, I'm close to a city full of more educated, reasonable folk. For a Medieval Deathworld, that is. Last I checked scholars still thought that the Earth was the center of the universe. I was at my wit's end with the people of white orchard and even the surviving area, and just as they were at mine, I was at their far more terrified end. I figured that the folk living in city's would be far more reasonable than them, especially if I actually took my hood off. Of course, you might be wondering why I could take to simply walking around and taking my hood off when I walked into villages. See, that might help on my return trips to some of them, but with the reputation I presumably have now, it wouldn't help. Turns out I can be a bit thick-headed at times without my emotions to guide me."
"Hey now, stop hitting me in the face with your tail. It isn't funny. Yes, I get that you're getting impatient. I wouldn't need to do this if you would just tell me where the rest of you and all of my crossbows went. You can stop meowing, I'll shut up now!"
"..."
Munch, Munch, Munch...
"...Satisfied? Good."
"Now, where was I - ah yes, my cloak. See, I'm not entirely comfortable showing my face for some reason. I'm more than willing to do so if it makes me seem far more approachable, and perpetrates me from any nasty rumors flying about of a silver-cloaked wraith, because thats what every village seems intent on calling me. Now, while I was close to Oxenfurt, and could get there fairly quick, I still wasn't exactly the most trustworthy of figures. A lone young man dressed in silver and completely unarmed showing up at the gates of a small city? Perhaps acceptable. In the middle of a war, in one of the most war-torn lands? Never."
"So, I had a plan. I would keep on moving towards Oxenford, yes, but I would do so at the same pace I had been exploring everything else at in a fairly wide radius. In fact, nothing would change on that front, and I would reach the city in a fair amount of time. That arbitrary little number I set myself was my time limit, just to motivate myself a bit. I do so need that... Anyway, this is where my plan started to come together."
Munch,Munch,Munch
"It was easy enough to find several wagons, each mostly intact. I cannibalized their parts, started to store them in that fairly large room I sealed off, used bits and bobs to put them all together again and make a fairly nice wagon. You would be surprised how often and for how long carts are left on the side of the road after being attacked by monsters or looted by bandits. The horses, though... not so often. It took far more effort to find one, and tame it. He's also in the room with the cart, and as far as I can tell he was tamed and ran wild after some monster attack, because he was far too easy to tame. Responded to whistles and such as well. I had spent a fair while figuring those out. Those are two parts of step one complete."
"I'm assuming the noise of me loading useless junk I'm going to never have a use for onto the cart is what drew you back into the lair, hm? I still cant figure out how you guys unblocked your tunnel."
Munch, Munch, Burp!
"...of course, I'm ashamed to have assumed anything else."
"Now, just yesterday is when I finally explored far enough to see the city itself. Once I pry myself away from you, or more accurately, once you let me stop petting you-"
Mrow!
"- I'm going to finish loading everything onto the cart. Yet you see, my plan's first phase is not a three part plan."
Mrow?
"No, it is a ... four? Five? However many parts you feel it should be defined as plan! Because my main goal here, in this world, is not just to get acquainted with my powers and generally speaking, being me. No,its also to try and gain some weapons of decent worth that wont break simply from a combination of my strength and lack of skill! Also, weapons training! So, how to go about this? Why, building up a reputation as a trader, of course! I will proceed to move on to Novigrad after establishing myself in Oxford, where I can use everything earned during my time in Oxford - where from in-game experience I can state no smiths of decent skill exist, though there are certainly opportunities enough for me to find a teacher to bestow upon me the art of the blade. It's what the city is renowned for - its academies and scholars. Perhaps, regardless of how long I spend in either of those cities, I can place a notice on a noticeboard to draw attention to myself. How exactly do those work? I'm assuming I can just slap a piece of paper on them and move on. Bah, me and my lack of medieval-aged common sense..."
"So then, once I move on from Oxenford - perhaps being lucky enough to meet the Bloody Baron's daughter - and finish up in Novigrad, what am I to do? Why, visit the Bloody Baron himself and slap some bloody sense into the man! When he's not drunk, he's an actually good father and leader! Of course, thats something that happens depressingly low frequency, but regardless. Once I do that, what am I to do? Why, pay the dear old Ladies of the Woods - or as I call them, the Crones-of-DIE NOW! - a visit. The thought of them knowing of me, which they almost certainly must considering the monster's that attack me on day one which still haven't made a reappearance. My current thoughts on the matter are the Ladies are hoarding them, or they've naturally decided to make an army."
"But the most important thing to remember in all of this, my dear tabby cat? I may be monologging my plans to you. I may be sitting in a swivel chair I was surprised to find existed in this World. And I may have been petting you the entire time. Yet we must retain plausible deniability, so if anyone asks - this is not a dastardly plot!"
Mrowowow! Owowowowow!