Die, Monster, Die

While the "Girls" are not at home, the Witchers are attacked by a very strange monster, one they have never encountered, heard of or read of before. A monster that stubbornly refuses to die.

Written for Day 6 of the Witcher Monster MAYhem 2024: Song prompt "Die, Monster, Die", the Day 3 prompt "Pointy Teeth" and the Whumpay prompt "Animal Attack" (although, is this really an animal?)

"Die, you mother-fucking monster! Will you finally die?" Lambert roars, yet the monster seems to have other plans. For the umpteenth time it reassembles its scattered fragments and attacks again. Damn!

Lambert swings his sword, and this time the blade is coated with vampire oil. This creature does not look like any vampire he knows, not at all. But it is out for their blood, this much is obvious. And it has not been unsuccessful in its endeavour. Coen is bleeding from a bite wound in his calf, Cahir's left upper arm is dripping big drops of blood onto the floor, Vesemir was bit in the thigh while Geralt is missing a piece of his fucking butt. Lambert is the only one who is still unharmed. It is ridiculous. Five fucking Witchers against one creature that is not even this big. It is actually no bigger than a medium-sized dog. Yet it stubbornly refuses to die like one. And keeps on attacking them, worse than a combat mut on fisstech.

Lambert's sword cuts clean through what might be the monster's head. It is the part with the big maw and the pointy teeth in it. However, there is nothing else that would make it resemble a head, no eyes, no nose, no ears of any sort. It is a frigging mystery how the beast even knows where they are with no visible sensory organs, not even a tongue. He has fought so many very strange creatures in his Witcher life, but this one is easily the strangest of them all.

The "head" detaches from the rest of the creature's body with a squishy sound and falls to the ground. There is no blood, nor any other bodily fluid, and neither the sound of cracking bones or of pain, or a growl or anything. Instead, like several times before, the head simply kind of crawls back toward the main part, merges with it, and suddenly the maw and teeth are back in a totally different place, poised to jump at one of them yet again.

"Cahir!" Lambert shouts, but it is not really necessary, the former Nilfgaardian commander has his sword at the ready. Not that stabbing it through the maw does much damage to the creature - the very temporary hole just mends by itself within less than a minute - but it saves Cahir from another painful, bleeding bite wound, at least for now.

"What the fucking hell is this thing?" he pants. "I've never read anything about a creature even remotely resembling this in any of your Witcher books! And I believe I've read them all!"

"Not the slightest idea," Geralt says, breathing heavily. He has tried everything he can think of against the creature, different blades, of course, oils, Witcher signs, but to no avail. The beast does not seem to have a circulatory system, so Brown oil didn't work. Cinfrid oil did not have any effect at all, so it obviously does not feel pain, Hanged Man's Venom was equally useless. The creature's physiology must be too different from a human's for it to be poisonous. Which is not really surprising considering the beast lacks any resemblance to humans whatsoever. It apparently is not an insectoid, necrophage, ornithosaur, spectre or vampire either as none of their creature specific oils has helped in the least either. In addition, they have tried to roast it with Igni, stun it with Aard, trap it with Yrden and confuse it with Axii, yet the effects were only very short-lived, if there were any at all. Now Geralt is sadly running out of ideas. And the fucking monster is attacking again with incredible speed.

Ignoring the searing pain from the bite wound in his butt, Geralt swivels around and blasts the beast into the wall with Aard. One hole in his backside is more than enough, thank you very much! However, it only gives them the briefest of breaks to recover their breaths while the creature's body sort of drips from the wall. Then it reassembles itself into its more defined yet strangely amorphous shape again. And, before the Witchers know what is happening, it half flies, half jumps into Lambert's face.

"Argh!" is the only sound he can make before the pointy teeth sink themselves into his hairy cheek.

"Shit!"

"Fuck!"

"Damn!"

"Hell and damnation!" the three other Witchers and the one human exclaim simultaneously, rushing to Lambert's aid. With all their combined strength, they try to pry the monster loose, but the creature is horribly slimy, slippery and squishy and almost impossible to get a grip on. Fuck. And they cannot use their swords or igni or anything except for their bare hands so close to their brother's face.

Lambert grunts with agony, his knees starting to buckle.

Shit, shit, shit, the beast might be eating his face off! Yet, what can they do against something that resembles more a huge, blood-thirsty slime fungus than any creature they have ever encountered before? A slime fungus with teeth. But what if—?

"How— how do you kill off slime mould?" Cahir wheezes.

"Vinegar!" Vesemir and Coen exclaim in unison. They let go of the slimy monster and run toward the kitchen as fast as they can. How lucky that Kaer Morhen has a well-stocked pantry.

The two are back within little more than a minute, each armed with several bottles of vinegar. It is probably a totally crazy idea, but with no other option, they have to try. It is their only chance to save Lambert.

Geralt grabs one of Coen's bottles, pulls out the cork with his teeth, then douses the monster with the dark, acidic fluid made from black grapes. It is a shame, he loves this vinegar and it is not so easy to come by in the north, nor is it cheap, but he would sacrifice a lot more to save his brother, no matter how annoying Lambert can be once in a while, or even most of the time.

There is an ominous sizzling sound. The outer layer of the creature starts to bubble up, forming some kind of dirty wine-red foam. It not only looks disgusting, like bloated, rotting meat, but a vile odour begins to rise from the creature's bubbling body, too. Like sweetish puke. Yikes. Yet, for the first time, there is an effect. Geralt pours more of the vinegar onto the monster and Vesemir and Coen join in with the content of their bottles.

Lambert has sunk to his knees and is making whimpering noises that do not bode well. But finally, the monster lets go of its prey. It drops onto the floor with a wet thud, then creeps toward the darkest corner of the laboratory, leaving a brownish trail of spoiled vinegar and dead monster substance behind. Still throwing the acidic liquid at it, Geralt and Vesemir follow the slowly disintegrating creature. When it reaches the wall, what is left of it disappears into the cracks between the roughly hewn stones.

Damn. Will it die inside the wall? Or will it, one day, come back to attack them? Well, they better make sure to always have a couple of bottles of vinegar in the pantry then, preferably a cheaper one.

Coen and Cahir, in the meantime, have started to carefully clean Lambert's face. He is pale under the thin film of slime and goo covering his face, and in shock and bleeding from several bites to his cheek and chin. Yet, thank the gods, it does not look quite as bad as they feared. His nose and lips are still there, his eyes are intact and the bite wounds are not very deep.

"Brother, you're a lucky bastard," Coen says with an encouraging smile and a wink. "Looks like this beast did not care for your beard much. It sure as fuck liked Geralt's baby butt a lot better. And," he breaks into a broad grin, "welcome to the scar-face club. Was high time, too."

Lambert gives a weak smile which quickly turns into a grimace. He starts to curse. His face fucking hurts, even if things could easily have gone a lot worse. Hell, he will probably never be able to even look at a bottle of vinegar again. With his brothers' help, the redheaded Witcher gets to his still slightly unsteady feet.

"Damn, I need a drink," he grunts.

"First your face needs to be stitched up and dressed properly, son. And, I believe, there's two legs, an arm and even a butt that also need treatment," Vesemir says, looking at his other boys' bleeding injuries. None of them is lethal, but it is better not to risk any of these wounds to get infected. He would very much prefer to keep his leg too, and not lose it to gangrene. "When that is done, I suppose, we're all ready for a drink. And deserve one."

So, they get to work. When all the injuries are taken care of, the Witchers sit down at the big oak table in the great hall of Kaer Morhen, Geralt on a very soft cushion so his butt would not hurt too much and Lambert - minus his beard, it was too difficult even for Vesemir to sew him up properly with all that hair in his face - sporting his very fresh scars. Together, they have weathered yet another monster attack. A very strange one, but they will have plenty to tell Yennefer, Triss, Ciri and Jaskier about when they return from their - presumably very boring - shopping trip to Oxenfurt. Will they believe them that they were attacked by a deadly slime fungus that was almost impossible to kill?

Well, they all have fresh scars to prove it.