"I see you gather before me... hungry... terrified... Clutching your babes to your breast.
Emperor Emhyr has marched his legions into our lands... Laid siege to every fortress from here to the Blue Mountains. Rabid and ravenous, he bites and bites away.
Men of the north, you stand at the precipice! Your kings have failed you, so now you turn to the gods! And yet you do not plead? You do not kneel to dust your heads with ash? Instead you wail, "Why have the gods forsaken us?"
We must look into the trials we failed long ago!

In a time past, our world intertwined with another through an upheaval scholars call the Conjunction of the Spheres...
The gods allowed unholy forces to slip into our domain. The offspring of that cataclysm was the nefarious force called magic...
Yet we did not banish it, instead studying the vile arcane for our own power and wealth! And the monsters at our door... the unholy relics of this Conjunction?

...the trolls...

the corpse eaters...

the werewolves?

Did we raise our swords against them? Or have we laid this burden on others?
On so-called Witchers... Stray children taught the ways of foul sorcery, their bodies mutated through blasphemous ritual. Sent to fight monsters, yet they could not distinguish good from evil. The flicker of humanity long extinguished within them.

Yes, their numbers have dwindled throughout the years. But still few roam our lands, offering their bloody work for coin. To this day they shame us with their very existence!
The north bleeds, flogged by war! The battles are the gods' whip, chastisement for our sins!
And let us not forget the terrors, the scourges from beyond our world! The Wild Hunt rides the skies with every full moon! The dark raiders abduct our children into lands unknown! Some say they herald a second Conjunction!

Can we chart a course back into the light? Will we find the strength to banish the mages from our kingdoms? Unite around the warmth of the Eternal Fire?

Nigh is the Time of the Sword and Axe!

None will fight this war in our stead!

Nigh is the Time of Madness and Disdain!"

Chapter 1: The Witcher

Darkness falls upon the land of the North, and along with the sun, all the noblemen, farmers, and peasants return from whence they came and succumb to the hours of toil they suffered throughout the day, and fall into a deep slumber. Everything in the land was at peace... or, at least, that's how it seemed. You see, when the sun rests and the moon graces the land with its sleep-inducing presence, not all succumb as easily to its call, and there are some that claim this time as their day. The moon becomes their sun, and they go about their own toil, working in their own way. These people can be anything from guards to artists, thieves or ne'er-do-wells, or monsters from the darkest pits of Hell itself. But among all these nocturnal and diurnal creatures was a man, a man who classified as both.

He was nocturnal as well as diurnal, man as well as beast. The people of this land refer to men like this as "Witchers." Mutated humans gifted unnatural abilities and superhuman senses via a ritual long forgotten. The people fear these beings, and treat them as subhuman, worse than the monsters these witchers fight. Still, humans will be humans, and all humans suffer from the easily-contracted disease of hypocrisy, and call on witchers to do their dirty work to this day. For in a world plagued with monsters, would stands a better chance? A human, or another monster?

The man opens his eyes, revealing his golden, cat-like pupils to the air around him. The air grants him a breeze which blows his tangled locks of white hair free from his shoulders where they once sat. The air also gifts to the man a special scent. It smelled to him of perfume, expensive and delicious, mixed with a hint of human blood. The source of the scent walked with soft steps forward towards the witcher, stopping just beside a nearby tree.

A woman.

As the witcher's eyes meet with the slender body of the woman before him, the breeze that once felt as though it would last as long as the night would dies down, giving way to naught but the deceivingly peaceful silence of the night. As suddenly as it arrived, the silence was broken by the woman, her voice as fair and as beautiful as her visage led the witcher to believe. "You must be the witcher I'd heard so much about," see began, "it seems your name was not as deceiving as one would think... White Wolf." As she utters the title, her lips gain the irresistible urge to curl into a soft, comely smile. It was odd, something about that name just made her want to laugh, but she stopped herself just with a smile. The witcher, the one feared by man and beast alike, was amusing to her, or so it seemed.

"Something funny about that name?" The White Wolf asks, his face never shifting from its serious, emotionless expression it held since their conversation began.

"No, not at all... it's fitting for a man of such renown," she replies.

"Don't think I'm that famous yet. Kings and holy knights are renowned and respected, but they're respected out of love. Me, I'm a Witcher, arguably one of the most respected one out there, but most respect me out of fear of my... abilities."

"I cannot argue. The names White Wolf, Butcher of Blaviken, Ravix of Fourhorn, Geralt of Rivia, all are respected... and feared. But, most only see the monstrous side of you, Master Witcher..." the woman begins to take small steps forwards, and with each passing inch closed between them, a button of her dress in undone. "...there are very few who have seen your tender side," another inch, another button, "your kinder side," yet another button, "your... romantic side." As the final button of her blouse is undone, and the woman stands above the witcher, looking down at his old, battle-worn and scarred face, her smile extends from ear to ear until it formed a monstrous grin. The once beautiful face of the maiden was now deformed, grotesque, and vampiric. She leans down swiftly to the witcher's neck and slowly, she sinks her long fanged teeth into his veins.

The blood of a witcher... so delicious, so irresistibly tantalising. Truly a worthy last meal...

*Shink! Chisssssshh!*

A blade, runed, made of pure steel found itself inside the chest of the woman whose teeth were still sunk into the witcher's neck. As blood gushes from the wound, the woman's teeth retract from the vein she sucked on. As her fangs are exposed to the open air, the blood that dripped from her teeth begins to steam. The blood was black, like the night around them. She gasps, the pain paralyzing her body. Then, something soothing. A hand, muscular yet soft, helps her to lay peacefully on the ground. The silver blade is sheathed, and now all that the woman saw were those golden eyes. "Witcher..." she weakly raises a hand to his cheek. "Tell me... tell me, was my death ordered by my sister...? Please, as my last request, you must tell me... was it Udothi who ordered this?"

The witcher could only nod and say, "yes."

"Then... please, you must... you must kill her too. She is a danger... she killed Holdan." Geralt listened to the woman's words, though he did not seem surprised. "She killed my beloved... said she had to 'even the playing field.' Holdan... he... he was the only one who accepted me. Even when I told him what I was... even when he knew I was a Bruxa, he still loved me... accepted me, even offered me his blood... but when he died... when she killed him, I was left with nothing... I could not stay in the village, I needed food, so... I wandered, but... but that boy... in the field... tell me, will he rest in peace...?" The Witcher responds again with just a nod. "Good... now, please, make my sister pay... for Holdan." With a final nod from the witcher, the woman succumbs to her injuries and passes away. Geralt does the best he could do in the way of laying her peacefully on the ground before walking away, down to the village resting just past the hill, steely determination in his eye. The contract holder, that woman of slim build and similar features to that of her sister, she was a Bruxa. A type of vampire that desires only one thing: humans. Flesh, bone, blood, they don't discriminate. They'll rip and maim and eat without care... except for one. The one Geralt had killed. That one was no monster, not truly... and Geralt detests killing anything other than monsters. He'll get his reward, yes, but with it, he'll take Udothi's head too.

The witcher arrives at the village in a time of crisis. The cries of the people gave Geralt all the information he needed to hear. Udothi was gone, and he took Clef, the chief's son with her. Shaking his head, Geralt approached the village stables and mounted his horse swiftly before giving it a quick kick to get him going. "Come on, roach!" He shouts before the horse takes off in the direction Udothi went in - it was rather easy to pinpoint, actually. Just follow the hoof prints and childlike screaming. Geralt chases after the fleeing Bruxa at top speed, not sparing Roach, the poor thing. The chase was long and arduous, and ends as most roads do, at a dead end. This dead end, however, led not to the death of the final Bruxa, no, it instead led to a cave which Udothi promptly took shelter in. Geralt was still hot on her tail, though, and made his way down into the dark grotto. The further he walked into this cave, the more his medallion vibrated and tugged on his neck.

"Place of power...?" Geralt thought aloud as he used his hand to calm his medallion down. As soon as he did so, however, he heard a blood-curdling scream coming from deeper into the cave. He ran, hoping that the boy was unharmed, however unfortunately unlikely that may be. Geralt ran past stairs, altars, and odd statues depicting two identical women standing back-to-back. He ran until he had nowhere else to run, until he ran into nothing but a cobblestone wall at the end of a long hallway. "Damn," Geralt cursed under his breath as he turns quickly to search for another way to go, but something caught his attention. It was another loud scream, one that clearly came from behind the wall Geralt had run into. He approaches it again, his interest peaked. As he touches the wall a second time, his wolf-headed medallion shakes rapidly. "An illusion," He thinks aloud. "Got just the thing for you." Geralt steps back and draws forth two things from his being - the first, his silver sword, still covered in blood from the other Bruxa, and a circular device of magical origin; Nehaleni's Eye. He holds the eye up to the wall, and in an instant, the illusion fades, exposing the shocking scene that hid behind it.

There were bodies, many of them, all piled atop one another in a mass grave of sorts in the corner of the room. In the other corner was a fresher body, the newest of them all. It was Clef, Geralt didn't even need to examine the body to know that. "What kind of twisted experiment was she conducting?" He thought aloud, once again. This... 'lab' he was walking around in was... brutal, to say the least. Cleaners, hooks, vials of blood, brains in jars... all centered around a pentagram in the center of the room, made completely of human innards. "Disgusting." Geralt does his best not to breathe from his nose; the smell was awful, even for someone who's gotten up close and personal with a Zeugl. As Geralt walks across the room, his medallion vibrates suddenly, just in the middle of the pentagram. Before him, a mirror roared with immense magic power, on par with that of one of the portals Avalla'ch took Geralt through on his search for Ciri. As he stares at the phenomenon, he can't help but notice a slight pain in his side. He looks down in curiosity, only to see blood falling from a gash that had not been there before. Suddenly, a laugh came from ahead. In front of Geralt, the Bruxa stoop with the head of Clef in her hand. "...50 bodies worth of human blood, the blood of a child, the blood of a cursed being, and..." she smiles deviously, "the blood of a witcher."
"What did you do?" Geralt asked aggressively.

"I just completed a pet project of mine, Master Witcher." Her voice was devilish and accented, though not as beautifully as her sister's. Truly this Bruxa was the lesser of the two, at least in terms of beauty. "And now that my mirror is complete, I shall finally be released from this dull, dull world, and my full power will be restored."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Geralt steps forward aggressively, but the Bruxa did not move.

"Oh poor, naive Geralt... you have no idea what I am, do you? Not truly," Udothi chuckles like she had just been asked the dumbest question she'd ever heard. "No doubt my sister has told you that we were Bruxa, yes? That I was so selfish and bloodthirsty that I killed her beloved? Hmph, such a foolish girl. No, no, witcher... there is no Holdan. He never existed."

"What do you mean?"

"It's true. You see, my sister and I used to be great warriors back home. We fought and killed monster after monster and never tired of it. But then, something happened. We found ourselves stranded in a foreign land, stripped of our rankings and powers. We bore nothing but the clothes on our backs, as well as the overwhelming hunger for blood. We had tried to go home ever since, but my sister suggested we adapt and succumb to our... disgusting urges. When I refused, she ran away, killing all who crossed her path. Her trail of murders was clear, and I could not have let this place be found by the humans... so, I had her killed. It is quite simple, really."

Geralt, after hearing her story, just stood there in disbelief. Was he lied to? Or, was he being lied to now? Her story seemed genuine, but then again, so did her sister's. He couldn't decide. He couldn't decide which was true or not.

"If you are no longer going to kill me, then I have much to do. Your payment is in my home back at the village, go there and take it. Now, if you excuse me, I really must be going..." with that, she turns to the portal. "Do not follow me," commanded the woman before stepping through the mirror and into what lies beyond.

Geralt still stood, attempting to process what just happened. "Not a Bruxa...? If she's not a Bruxa, then she's gotta be something else. Higher vampire, maybe?" He thinks and thinks, only to be interrupted by his medallion. It was vibrating less and less by the second. The portal was closing, and the Bruxa was just about to get away. It was here Geralt was faced with a choice... enter the portal and hunt down Udothi, or collect his reward, then move on, like a witcher should do? When it comes down to it, Geralt doesn't fight for the good of others. Sure, he could justify his actions that way... but nothing he could say could ever hide that fact. The fact that witchers are simply monsters who fight other monsters, only working for the promise of gold.

Geralt turns around and looks out at the dark tunnels behind him. It was a long way back, but his money was waiting for him, and so was Roach, and the rest of his world. All that he cared for and loved... but witchers are emotionless, right? They can't love, right? They care for no one but themselves, right?

No, witchers are heroes.

Witchers fight for gold, yes, but they also fight for one other thing... one other motive to their battle against the monsters of this realm. One simple thing.

Witchers fight to save lives. And not just the lives of their benefactor, though they certainly are a priority, no, they fight for the lives of all. Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Hobbits, and all the little creatures that litter the land.

Witchers aren't monsters, they're the one thing keeping this world from falling apart.

And with that, he emerges from the cave, the mirror behind him as he is graced by the beauty of the morning sun, a familiar sun... but even so, this sun was all too foreign. As he looks down from his perch upon the mountain, Geralt spots a village, far down in the valley below. A perfect spot to start his search.

"Udothi. Be ready, because before the night is done, your head will be mine."