NOTICE: Kept you waiting huh? All jests aside, I am not dead. Will try to get back to the previous update schedule but…Who knows, what with the world as it is. Anyway, on with the story.

P.S.: I openly welcome reviews and criticism in order to improve both this story and future works.

"_"- Speech

'_'- Inner thoughts

[_] – Tier Spells/ Skills/ Martial Arts

{_} – Signs and Magic

4th HUNT: The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

"No witcher's ever died in his bed."

- Geralt of Rivia

Surface dwellers were never meant to venture into the depths of the earth. When one leaves the warm embrace of the sun and steps into darkness, they enter another world. A hostile place where unimaginable horrors dwell.

Letho had braved these very depths many times, had faced their inhabitants even more times. And yet, the witcher couldn't shake the feeling that this time he had bitten off more than he could chew. The descend into the mineshaft had been… normal, dare he say it, calm. In fact, it had been too calm. Like the prelude to a gathering storm. The ghostly voice urging him ever further down into the cave. Of course, he had taken a slight detour, exploring a side passage.

He was being guided into a trap. Letho could feel it. Both the priest and the scattered notes he had picked up along the way spoke of the creatures that inhabited this place. The monster-slayer had yet to see any. There were no signs of anything recently living or having lived in the shaft. That bode ill.

But there was evidence of monsters of another kind. Walled-off mass graves, torture rooms, cages… It painted a grim picture of what had gone down here. With every passing second Letho regretted taking this job more and more.

"Should have gone for the drowners." He murmured. "The Devil's Pit…Fitting as names go."

The more he saw, the more he was certain that he was dealing with a miasmal. The concentrated suffering of the plague's victims would have been ample enough for one to be birthed and, thanks to their constitution, a witcher would be the perfect host. Reinald must have figured out what was happening and trapped himself and the creature somewhere further in. The damn thing was probably itching to break free. And Letho was its ticket out.

'Shitshow through and through. '

What put him on edge even more was something else. Reinald's notes were always placed near a glowing {Yrden} glyph. Having found one on a desk in what had been the other witcher's quarters, the Kingslayer had decided to look around the small room. However, no matter how much he searched he couldn't find the note. Something was off. All the others had been easy to spot.

It was then that the witcher noticed an oddity. The dust on the desk. It had been disturbed. Something had clearly rested on top of the desk. 'A note and a box of some sort. Deliberately removed. Guess this was the potion recipe and the ingredients for it.'

"Just wonderful…"

Still there was nothing to be done. Letho would have to face the miasmal with just his silver and skills.

Preparing himself for the tough fight ahead, the witcher continued further in.

After a few minutes of walking a large double door appeared at the end of the tunnel. As soon as the Kingslayer had neared it, it had creaked open on its own. Taking a peek inside, Letho could see that the tunnel opened into a large chamber. There, stuck in stalagmites, hung Reinald's body. Even without his medallion Letho could feel the dark power emanating from it.

Steeling his nerves, the Viper stepped into the chamber, the doors slamming shut behind him.

Slowly unsheathing his silver sword, Letho began approaching the trapped body. He made it only a couple of steps further before the voice called out once again.

"You there… Destroy the stalagmites, free me."

"Hmm. Trapped in a salt chamber. Got you good, that Reignald."

It looked like luck was on the witcher's side. The miasmal was trapped and weak. He would probably be able to exorcise it before things could get dicey. First things first, Letho placed down a {Yrden} trap, the glowing runes forming a circle on the floor around both the miasmal and the witcher. Letho then braced himself. After a moment, he sent a blast of {Aard} at the stalagmites.

He expected them breaking, releasing the imprisoned specter. Instead, both Reignald's body and its prison simply disappeared. As if they were never there.

"An illusion?!"

But there was no time for surprise, as something slammed into the witcher's back. Whatever it was, it had been slowed by {Yrden} but the blow was still strong enough to set Letho off balance and send him crashing to the ground.

It was only thanks to his enhanced reflexes that Letho was able to roll out of the way of a slash aimed at his head. Jumping to his feet, the Viper could now see his opponent. It was Reingald… Or more accurately it had once been him. Reddish-black smoke wafted from his body and his cat eyes had taken on a sickly orange tint.

The {Yrden} trap Letho had placed down sputtered away, allowing for the possessed to charge the Viper at a blazing speed. Letho met his strike head on with his own blade, steel meeting silver in a contest of strength and durability. A contest that Letho was slowly loosing. Inch by inch he could feel himself be pushed back. Acting quickly, he blasted Reignald back with {Aard} and backpedaled in order to create distance between them. It bought him a scant few seconds to collect himself before the miasmal was on him again.

The two found themselves locked in a deadly dance. The possessed would try to charge at the Kingslayer and he in turn would try to keep his distance. Back and forth. Slash and stab.

Letho could feel himself tiring out. His strikes were getting slower and his guards sloppier. He needed to finish this fast otherwise the damn specter would win through attrition. While thinking of ways to end the fight, the miasmal attacked again. Parrying its slash, Letho noticed something interesting.

Reignald's blade, having sat in the moist cave air for who knows how long without any maintenance, was in a rough shape. Rust covered its length and the edge had chipped here and there. A large dent near the cross guard became Letho's target. Over the next few exchanges whenever he got the chance he struck at or around it. His efforts paying off when a large crack appeared in the blade.

With a ferocious snarl, the Viper launched one last slash, compensating for his silvers relative softness with physical strength. His blow struck true and the miasmal's blade shattered. The creature shocked at the destruction of its weapon froze for a moment. That moment was all Letho needed.

{Yrden}'s runes appeared around them and {Aard} blasts hit the possessed witcher with the force of ballista bolts, the onslaught of signs finally bringing Reignald down. His body stood motionless for a second before it erupted into that same reddish-black smoke. Slowly a shape began to take form from it.

"Hugh…Hugh…Here comes the fun part…Hugh." Letho murmured between breaths.

The miasmal's true form was tall. Really tall. Fleshy protrusions and buboes covered its sickly gray skin. Its privates were hidden by a long garment made from patchwork. It had no feet, instead, similarly to wraiths, its lower body disappeared into mist. Muscular arms, the size of small tree trunks, tipped with sharp claws. It had no face. In its place stood a red-glowing crack.

The sudden sound of the doors slamming open drew Letho's gaze away from the miasmal. A mob of the creatures he kept hearing about was pouring into the chamber, growling and snarling at the exhausted witcher. It seemed that the specter wasn't feeling as confident now that it had lost its host.

'Too many to take on….'

And yet he couldn't just let them surround him. Taking note of the bottleneck the doors created, a really stupid idea came to the Viper. Bombs. He still had some grapeshot left over. Chances were he was going to end up burying himself along with the miasmal and its minions but he was out of options. The miasmal sensing his intentions slashed at him in an attempt to stop him but it was far too slow.

Taking one of the explosives from his belt, he aimed for the mob. His aim was a bit off and the bomb detonated above the monsters' heads. Still, the blast was large enough to take a few of their numbers out. Maybe too large as ominous black cracks started spreading along the cave ceiling.

Rolling out the way of the specter's attack, Letho's priorities shifted to finding a way out of the chamber. Spotting no other except through the doors and the mob, the witcher let out a curse. He would have to destroy the specter in order to be rid of its servants. Returning his gaze to the miasmal, he caught the moment a large piece of the ceiling collapsed on one of its shoulders. Though it barely reacted to the initial impact after a few moments it let out an ear-piercing shriek. Burn-like marks now ran down its shoulder. Like someone had poured acid all over it. Letho's eyes widened.

The chamber they were in was carved out of salt. While the salt had served as a mere prison while the miasmal inhabited a host, in its true form the substance was poison. 'Like a snail without its shell.' The witcher now had a plan. Only problem was that the mob of creatures had recovered from the blast and was closing in on him. He would have to act fast.

Scooping up a handful of salt from the ground, the Viper broke out into a dead run straight at the still-shrieking monster. By the time the miasmal was able to snap out of the pain and noticed the witcher it was too late. Letho threw the salt into the creatures face, sending it reeling back.

While the specter was too busy clutching its face, Letho placed a {Yrden} trap and grabbed another grapeshot bomb from his belt. He threw it as hard as he could into the ceiling above the monster. The blast was strong enough to collapse a sizable chunk of the ceiling down on top of it. The miasmal, having recovered enough to notice the situation it was in, tried to get away by teleporting but was rooted in place by the sign. The boulder slammed into it, pinning it to the floor. It was then that the shrieking began. Letho watched as the salt slowly melted the miasmal. In its final moments the specter turned its head to face the witcher, as if it was taking a last look at its killer.

With their master dead, the approaching mob of tortured souls started to dissolve smoke. Wasting not even a second, Letho sprinted for the door. And not a moment later, the cave shook. That final bomb blast had done it, it seemed. The whole place was about to come down.

As he ran, the Viper casted {Quen} as a precaution against any falling rocks. Sprinting up an uneven mine shaft was a difficult task on its own. A collapsing uneven mine shaft? Nearly impossible. Yet Letho ran on, hoping that the way up hadn't caved in. He blasted through small blockages with {Aard}. He tripped over fallen rocks but kept going. His cat eyes caught the tunnel brightening. He was almost out. A hair's breathe away from safety. But it was not to be. A large boulder broke free from the ceiling and fell in the witcher's path. {Aard} proved useless against it and there was no way around it. Cursing his luck, all Letho could do was create a protective dome with {Quen} and hope that his shield held. The last thing he heard was the crashing sound of the celling coming down on top him and then there was darkness.

"A true Witcher should never abandon poultry in distress."

They were created to serve the Supreme Ones so excellence was expected them in everything they did. That went doubly so for him as the one their Master trusted so much, he had revealed part of his plan. The Master who had been so gracious in allowing him to be part of his schemes. It was an honor granted only to him. Not even Albedo could decipher their Lord's will as well as he.

Thanks to that, loath as he was to admit it, he felt superior to the others. He had thought himself incapable of making the same mistakes as them, that he was the closest to their Master. Yet in this moment, standing before the Devil's Pit entrance, he felt lost. Unsure how to proceed.

The miasmal he had found was dead. The rare gift he wanted to present to his Lord… gone. The Shadow Demons stationed in the mine had perished so he couldn't even tell if the witcher had perished as well. In any other situation he would have simply gone in to make sure the job was finished but the way in had caved in. Without knowing in just how bad of a condition the shaft was teleporting in was too dangerous. Blasting his way in? Possible but it would take time and draw attention. He was sure that within a couple of minutes of him starting, terrified peasants would arrive to gawk at him. Going in now would be too large a risk. In other words…

He had failed. Failure… It was a foreign concept. Completely alien to him. Even if the witcher was dead, it would only be a partial success. Or rather a partial failure. What would Lord Ainz? What would his Creator? His mind ground to a halt.

He stood in front of the mine for a while. Simply staring at the collapsed entrance. It was the sound of approaching footsteps that finally snapped Demiurge back to reality. The demon teleported away with [Greater Teleportation] but not before ordering his personal Shadow Demon to keep an eye on the mine. Should this Letho of Gulet emerge alive and well, Demiurge would be the first to know.

Moments after the Arch-Devil had left, an odd person entered the Devil's Pit. A short masked figure in a red cloak.

"Hmmm… Doesn't look good." Stated the cloaked one. Her voice, for it was a girl beneath the mask, sounded young.

This was Evileye, a vampire and an adamantite level adventurer from the Blue Roses, though it had been quite a while since she last saw them. One moment they were all together at the inn, the next she was all alone in some field. At first she had thought that this was Jaldabaoth's doing and had prepared herself for the demon's attack. However, no such attack had come. Confused, Evileye had attempted to teleport back to Re-Estize but the spell had failed. It wasn't long before she realized she was not in her world. One look at the stars was all it took for her to understand this.

After this revelation, she had shut down for a bit, simply picking a direction and flying in it. That was all she did for the next couple of days before she finally snapped out of it. Rationalizing that it was likely that she wasn't the only one to be transported, she set out to look for either her teammates or others in the same situation.

She had quickly understood that this world was much more hostile towards magic than her own. She had been called a witch and chased out of villages. Soon she had started avoiding settlements and contact with people. Travelling by night along the less traveled roads also meant she was intimately aware of the monsters that inhabited this strange world. All in all they were pretty weak in comparison to the ones she was used to dealing with. It had also lead to her meeting one of this world's vampires. Detlaff was his name. Though unlike her it seemed the bloodsuckers here were very much alive and lacked the ability to turn their victims into lesser versions of themselves. Still it was an interesting conversation. Pleasant, dare she say.

Eventually, after a year or so of not hearing even a rumor of anyone like her, she had given up on finding other people from her world. She had been stupid to delude herself that her friends had fallowed her. She still kept travelling around the Continent as the locals called it. But avoiding the luxuries of civilization had taken its toll on Evileye. Her once red cloak had lost its bright color and resembled a rag more than a piece of clothing. And as much as she preferred flying around, her shoes had still worn out making them uncomfortable to wear. So with a heavy heart, the masked magic caster had entered a village. She didn't bother learning its name or even in which Kingdom it was, not that that would matter judging by the way the Nilfgaardian Empire advancing north.

After getting a new pair of shoes and leaving her cloak to be washed and stitched, she had headed for the inn, deciding to spend the night in the village for a change. It was quite lively inside. Apparently some merchant who had recently returned from Toussaint and had foolishly decided to buy everyone a round. Normally, Evileye would have simply scoffed and been on her way but…

"Black Ones ain't so bad… Hell, there was this one that even agreed to escort me past the Yeruga."

"Oh spare us the hogwash! Ain't no way some nilfgaardian prick and his pet sorceress got you past the patrols."

"Swear on me mum, I do. Sir Momon is as real as you and I!"

Her body had moved on its own. To an outside observer she might as well have teleported to the merchant's side. It was him… Her long dead heart had somehow skipped a beat. Sir Momon was here, in this world with her. She wasn't alone. After thoroughly interrogating the man, Evileye had learned that – yes, both members of Darkness and their pet monster had helped the merchant cross the Yeruga river. While it had happened a month or so ago, the trader had assured her that she could still catch up with them. Apparently Sir Momon was heading for Novigrad but had decided to take a detour through Dol Blatanna.

She had collected her cloak and departed first thing in the morning. Due to her Undead nature she was able to travel all day without tiring out so she was confident she would arrive before Darkness.

But while racing through Velen, something unexpected had happened. Passing by an abandoned mine, she had encountered a young priest of the Eternal Fire. He had warned her to steer clear of the mine. Apparently something evil lived inside.

She should have just ignored him, she was in a hurry you know, but something inside her wouldn't let her. She HAD been part of the Thirteen Heroes once. And there was also the fact that Sir Momon would have immediately offered his help in such a situation. Curse her love-struck mind.

She had offered the priest her expertise. As an adamantite adventurer she should have been able to deal with almost anything this world could throw at her. While the boy had looked dubious at her offer at first, after a slight demonstration of her magic, he had been all for help.

'Showing off with magic in front of someone who probably burns mages for fun… How foolish can I be?!' She scolded herself in her mind but by then it was far too late. Apparently some witcher had gone in before her. The fact he wasn't back yet probably meant he was dead.

'Witchers huh…' She had nothing against them. In fact they reminded her of the adventurers back home. They even picked up jobs from notice boards and had distinct medallions to determine from which school they came that where similar to the rank plates she knew oh so well. She supposed she should bring back his body for burial.

The first problem appeared before she had even entered the damn mine. The entrance had collapsed. Annoying but easily fixable through the application of [Maximize Magic: Acid Splash]. As Evileye was melting her way into the tunnel, her magic hit some sort of magic barrier. Peering through the orange colored dome she saw the prone body of the witcher. He was still breathing it seemed.

"Well, well. Would you look at that…"

"A true Witcher should never abandon poultry in distress."

Letho awoke to the sight of clear skies. He could feel the warmth of the sun on his skin. For a moment he thought he might've died and gone to some sort of afterlife. 'Yeah right. As if what awaits me after I kick it would be this nice.' Clearly someone had gone into the collapsed tunnel and dragged his ass out. 'Guess there really are suicidal fools out there.' That explained how he had gotten out of the rubble but it didn't explain why he didn't feel any pain. Even a witcher would feel like shit after being buried in a mine collapse. Something wasn't adding up.

The Viper slowly shifted himself into a sitting position. Taking note of his surroundings, he discovered that he had been left lying a couple of meters away from the mine's entrance. He was never going down there again. Not even if Melitele herself told him to do so. He was about to get up when a voice called out.

"Hey, you. You're finally awake."

Turning to look in the direction it had come from he spotted a child(?) standing a ways from him. Due to her mask and attire he couldn't really make out any distinguishing features apart from the fact she was blond.

"Hey! Don't ignore me!"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm awake. I take it you were the one who got me out of there." Letho said while pointing towards mine.

"Sure was. "

"Thanks I guess."

"You "guess"? What's that supposed to mean! I even wasted a potion on you!"

"What potion?" At his question, the masked girl reached into her cloak and pulled out a small vial containing a blue liquid. Its color reminded the witcher of Full Moon but it was clearly something he wasn't familiar with it. "What are its effects?"

"It's a healing potion. I can't use them myself but I always keep a few on hand in case of emergencies. I hear you witchers have a similar brew."

"Yeah, Swallow. Except it's not nearly as fast-acting as whatever it is you got. You interested in sharing the formula?"

"Sadly I've never taken an interest in alchemy so it is unknown to me too. You can buy one and try to study and recreate it though."

"Nah. Not worth it. Probably end up ruining it."

"Your loss. Now on to other matters. You deal with whatever was down there or do I need to go finish the job?"

"It was a miasmal, an evil spirit born from concentrated suffering. It's gone now. Best leave the tunnels collapsed though."

"Hm…That's good I guess."

"You don't sound too pleased."

"Wouldn't you be if you wasted your time waiting for someone to wake up, only for them to tell you that there was no reason for you to wait?"

"Touché."

Getting up, Letho noticed something was missing. Something very important to a witcher.

"You uh happen to have seen my silver sword?"

"Silver sword? No. Must have gotten buried under the rubble further in from where I found you."

At those words Letho turned his gaze to the pile of rocks that now blocked the mine's entrance.

"Hey, don't tell me you are planning to go back in there. If you get stuck again I won't help you."

"No. I never want to see this place again."

He would have to commission a new one somewhere. For now, he would simply have to make do with his steel. Turning back towards the masked stranger he introduced himself.

"L-Edmen. Edmen of Hagge. Witcher."

"What a half-arsed introduction. I am called Evileye."

"What a half-arsed name."

"Oi, watch it!"

By the time Letho felt like he was ready to hit the road, the sun had already started setting. For some reason the masked girl had stuck around, even though she claimed she was in a hurry. 'Hmph. Pushover.'

"So where you off to Edmen?"

"Gonna go collect my pay from the priest. After that? We'll see where the Path takes me. Might swing by Novigrad to get a new sword."

"Funny you should mention the Free City. I am headed there myself. But why go out of your way for a blade?"

"Got an… acquaintance… that forges swords there. Owes me a favor from back in the day. See, haven't had much luck on the Path. Coin pouch is kinda of light. Hoping to cash in the old friends discount."

"Well, they say the roads are safer when travelling together. So Edmen of Hagge, you wanna accompany me to Novigrad?"

"Might as well. Not like I am gonna get much work done without my silver."

"Let us be off then."

And thus the odd duo set forth into the wilds of Velen.