It was possible that Jaskier had overdone it. Slightly. Just a bit. Not too much really, he had avoided being run out of town. Not by a margin of more than a few minutes, but still. Coming back to the village looking (and, importantly, these were farmers) smelling like he had just escaped from a dungeon of horrors had caused quite the stir. Everyone had been out for market day, and it had been quite the gratifying crowd that had been there to witness him collapsing dramatically against a handy well.
His tale of a wizard gone mad with power, casting curses to create monsters wasn't even entirely fabricated. Barry was technically only interested (as far as Jaskier knew) in creating giant farm animals, sure, but a goat the size of a boat was likely to be quite deadly indeed if you asked Jaskier so really it wasn't much of a lie at all (if he added a few details about what the mage might want to do with goats in general, well those had been rather admiring research notes). That made a fairly direct segue into his probably wanting to capture witchers to get them out of the way, so no one could stop his horrible horde. They lapped it up. After all, everyone loves to gossip about the neighbors, especially if they have a bigger house and treat people like dirt.
Someone had, however, noticed that Jaskier wasn't actually injured under all the gore, and the bard had had to think fast and put on a credible act of being as shocked as anyone at that fact. He could, however, see the gears start to turn in the innkeeper's eye about magic monsters, and someone with newfound healing powers, and made the decision to get ahead of it. He declared himself to be obviously cursed before anyone could get out the pitchforks themselves, and nobly offered to leave in order to save them all from whatever awful consequences there might be to this foul magic. There was much lamenting. Clearly while they were glad to be rid of him on one level, on another people liked to convince themselves that they would have been the ones to shelter him. Out of their sheer principledness, naturally.
Not to rain on the parade of their theoretical generosity, he made sure to mention that he would head for the wilderness to attempt to preserve their safety. Also, he could make sure to warn the heroic witcher (no doubt riding to the rescue at this very moment) of all that was going on, and if he only had a few supplies he could hold out ever so much longer. The innkeeper, who had both been about to raise the hue and cry and the loudest professor of outrage at his exile, had no choice but to grant him all the rations he could carry.
That had been four days before Jaskier's current, shitty, day, and the high of his triumphant setting out was wearing thin indeed. He had reasoned that if Geralt hadn't taken the one road down from Kaer Morhen, he must have taken the other, and really it was more like his witcher to go investigate the missing sheep first anyways. Barry would have to hire outside help if he wanted to send anyone witcher-hunting, so that bought a few days. Jaskier had thought he would cut through the forest to meet Geralt on his way between the two towns, but had gotten lost. Not immediately. After just long enough to have a hard time finding his way back to the road by random chance. It wasn't exactly a pleasant stroll for the bard. The weather had been hotter than usual for this time of year, so Jaskier had been in no danger, but he hadn't had a chance to wash off the still-unrotting magic blood either.
Jaskier was thinking he'd finally caught a spot of luck, and started whistling a jaunty tune in celebration, when all the men in the campsite he'd spotted had suddenly frozen and gone quiet. No one froze that way in the wilderness in response to whistling unless they were up to no good, Jaskier reasoned. He therefore had about a minute to figure out how he wanted to play this.