Wolves in the Wilds-3

The year is 1165. I am 11 years old now. The years after Vesemir came to know my name seemed to have passed me by like sand in the wind, I reflected as I trekked through the keep’s courtyard. At five years of age, the Witcher slowly started to train my body. Light runs, some weight, meditation, breathing exercises, and basic sword forms with a small stick. At the same time, I also started visiting the huge library Kaer Morhen had, reading everything from creatures to geography to alchemy.

Standing at five feet already with my pointed ears and deep violet eyes, Currently, I was knee-deep in snow, making my daily trip to the Gauntlet. A series of spiked pendulums, giant swinging logs, thin beams…yet more spiked logs, and other painful but demanding things made up the daily training path of the Witchers, those who had graduated of course. I was the exception.

“Fucking Hells! You are up after yesterday?” an amused voice piped up from behind me, “That spike nearly gutted you Rhaehal!”

I raised my fist to the side of my head, blocking the unseen kick effortlessly as I continued my trek through the deep snow. Pushing the limb off my wrist, I looked back over my shoulder at my assailant, my eyes meeting the shit-eating grin of Björn, a tall, powerfully built boy Kiyan had brought back from Skelligë three years ago.

“The only thing that will get gutted is your stomach you oaf,” I muttered quietly, shaking my head at the ginger’s antics, finally arriving at the start of the grueling skill sharpener that had just three days ago claimed the lives of one of the trainees. “Now be quiet, I still haven’t forgotten how you shouted yesterday and damn near got me killed.”

Björn answered me in affirmative, and waving my hand at his words, I tilted my neck to the side once, feeling the satisfying cracks echo through the stillness around me. I took a deep breath, the sting on my ribs reminding me of the near-death I had suffered yesterday before I tensed my legs, and jumped up. Latching onto the grooves cut into the wood with only half of my fingers, I nearly dropped back on my ass the mild sting on my chest turned into an inferno of agony. Psyching up for the world of hurt I was going to push myself through, I ignored the pain and raised my right hand, my fingers finding the next hole to find purchase in.

As if the fact that the wood was ridged and bumpy like a cliff wasn’t challenging enough, the designers of the Gauntlet had made sure to make the grooves deep enough so that the fingers would go only a knuckle or two deep inside. My fingers were scarred and scabbed over from the numerous times I had felt small slivers of the unpolished tree get into my skin, and given the prickling I was feeling from my right middle finger…The same had happened once again.

Gritting my teeth, I scaled the dozen more handholds, my shoulder and ribs almost killing me midway due to the barely closed gash on my chest. The fact that wind would continuously buffet my face and snow made the wood slippery was also a factor in me almost slipping off…but after so many weeks of doing the Gauntlet, the climb wasn’t something I was going to fail at. Not when it was the most basic thing to do in this hellish death-swing-track.

I pulled myself up on the platform, clenching and unclenching my fingers as the pain was made even worse by the cold around me. Taking one more deep breath as I saw the swinging, spiked pendulums ahead of me, I shook my head and jumped forwards. seven steps. That is all it took me today to clear that twenty feet long plank and the three, swinging logs of death.

But even I crossed that obstacle, another one awaited me at the end of it, the thin, vertical logs scattered over an area with horizontal beams of old wood swinging at differing heights. Of all the obstacles, this was the most difficult one. Having already experienced a broken ankle and a cracked forearm due to it, I held no desire to go through that again.

And to think this was just the second hurdle in the Gauntlet.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1168

“So, you ready to undergo the Trial of the Grasses?” Ekizel asked me as I stuffed the last of the mushrooms into my mouth, “I heard the mages talking about how the Grasses and the mixtures were ready to be given to us.”

“Yeah, besides, my body had already reached the peak of its growth,” I nodded, looking down at my arms and torso, tightly packed, corded muscles greeting me, “I wonder if they add troll cells to it for the enhanced strength, or a cyclops’”

“Whatever it is, most of it is already inside us,” came the response as he licked the last of his food, “Never thought I would lick this gruel off my fingers. But what do you know, it has grown on me.”

“Björn never liked these mushrooms and grasses,” I laughed, “Always said his mother’s fishes and crabs were proper food.”

“Yes, well Björn was a stupid, boneheaded asshole too,” Ezikel pointed his spoon at me, “Even after being told not to attempt the Gauntlet like you were able to, he did that and got himself killed. He didn’t even have the proper sense to wrap his arms after they got cut. Parading them around like he was back in Skelligë and then going to the potions class. A fucking White Raffard’s did him in, a fucking White Raffards, Rhaehal!”

“That is what happens when Nekker’s blood gets into your bloodstream.” I shook my head, “Anyways, they won’t have the Trial of the Grasses first, not until The Choice is done.”

“There are 9 boys remaining after the training of the last few years,” Ekizel rolled his eyes, “I don’t see how any of us would refuse when the Master asks us the admittedly stupid question.”

“We will see,” I said as I stood up, “I am going to sleep now Ekizel, Vesemir wants to talk to me tomorrow first thing in the morn.”

Nodding at me, Ekizel too stood up, slinging his practice sword over his shoulder as he walked away, no doubt intent on striking against the dummy some more in the dead of the night.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“-and how would you differentiate between a Royal Griffin and a Volcanic Griffin?”

“A Royal griffin has a more vivid and brilliant plumage than the Volcanic one,” I answered, grunting as Vesemir’s swipe sent me skidding backward, “And they are smaller in size too.”

“I know that is not all Master Viman taught the initiates over the years you have been learning under him,” my torturer raised an eyebrow, his leg lashing out towards my chest. I backed away from the kick, jumping forwards with my own a moment later, which connected squarely with his hips. However, a kick that would have shattered a human’s bone simply sent him stumbling back a couple of steps, his mutated body inhumanly strong for my attacks to have any real effect.

Yet.

A right haymaker came at me, and I barely ducked underneath it, noting the increase in speed as I did so, while Vesemir continued on speaking as if he had just not tried to take my head off. “Keep the differences coming Rhaehal, I want to hear each and every one of them.”

“Fine you grumpy old sadist,” jumping to avoid a sweep from his right leg before I slammed my heel into his knee, following it with a punch to his solar plexus, which sent him back a few steps, “Volcanic Griffins are also known to raise the temperature around them, their wings able to send superheated air in concentrated bursts. Igni is practically useless against them due to their own body temperature being so high, and if the rumors from the South hold true, then the largest ones are able to use fire breaths much like the dragons, although it has not been verified yet. Probably because none of the Witchers have returned from such a contract.”

“Hmm,” Vesemir nodded, “You are good at recalling information while diverting your attention to something else. But you need to hone this skill even further. Sometimes, the environment will not be to your advantage, more ice than you are used to, poisonous fumes, and dead leaves make silence impossible. You need to have a calm and sharp mind at those times too, and your primary objective should be avoidance of as many injuries as you can manage, at any costs. But even while you are focusing on your well-being, you should be simultaneously capable of analyzing the monster and its location, and anything that you can use to turn the fight to your favor.”

“You ever face the dry leaf problem?” I asked, falling to my knees and dropping my face in the snow. “I only know about the poisonous fumes story from when you faced three Golems at the same time in Kovir, something about the tectonic plates shifting in recent memory?”

“It wasn’t poisonous, or at least not to me,” Vesemir chuckled, not a single breath out of rhythm as he moved over to the Gauntlet’s ledge and started to do pull-ups, “I had taken a contract for some mysterious deaths near the gemstone mines, which turned out to be a group of Golems chowing down upon the mineral-rich rock. Turns out, we were quite near to a fissure in the crust, adn when one of my Aard’s made the whole damn cliff slide off, a burst of natural gas came out of it. While it wasn’t toxic to me in the slightest, it does make things harder when your eyes sting like an arachnomorph rubbed its hair on your balls.”

“The fuck Vesemir?!” I cried out, raising my head from the snow, “Why in the name of Freya’s tits would you even know how an Arachnomorph’s hair would feel on your nuts?!”

“It is a…long story.”

“Senile old fuck,” I muttered as I picked myself off the ground and moved towards the start of the Gauntlet, “Such horrifying things wouldn’t happen to you if you bothered to tighten your breeches after leaving a whorehouse.”

“That is-ahem…” Vesemir’s voice trailed off into an embarrassed chuckle and I snorted, remembering snippets of Geralt’s own philandering ways. Guess Vesemir taught him the best ways to relieve stress as well.

“I know you are a freak of nature and all,” he began as I climbed up to the starting point, “But it still boggles my mind when you do the Gauntlet, despite not having undergone the Trials. It is certainly not impossible mind you, but with the ease you do it? Never has an initiate displayed as much physical prowess on the Gauntlet.”

“I guess my daddy was a circus performer,” I shot back, pulling myself up on the ledge, “The mystery of my father, is finally solved.”

“Then your daddy must have been a part-troll circus performer,” Vesermir snorted, looking up at me as he continued his pullups. With one hand. “How much stronger than a normal human are you? Two times? Three?”

‘Status’ I thought instinctively, and barely an eyeblink later my stats were in front of me, the familiar blue screen and what I had named ‘Hasbro’ script flashing in front of my eyes.

Information:

Rhaehal is a 14 years, 1 month old Aen Seidhe and ? Hybrid. His mother, Iva Fiona birthed and raised him alone until her death in Temeria. Saved from certain death by Vesemir, a Witcher from the Wolf School, Rhaehal was brought to Kaer Morhen, where he is now training to be a Witcher.

Level: 20

HP: 15123/16000

HP Regeneration: 50 per minute

SP: 2134/2300

SP Regeneration: 80 per minute

MP: 385/385

TP: 0/130

Toxicity Lowering: 2 per minute

Occupation: Initiate at Kaer Morhen

Money: None

Inventory: 0/50

Location: Kaer Morhen

Stats:

STR- 33

VIT- 38

AGI- 48

INT- 50

WIS- 29

Points: 48

General Consensus:

Talented, arrogant, mystery.

Quests:

Story- Dangerous.
[  ]Pass The Trial of Grasses.
[  ]Pass the Trial of Dreams.

[  ]Pass the Trial of Mountains.
[  ]Pass the Trial of Swords.

Daily:

Break your previous Gauntlet Record [  ]

Answer every question correctly [X]

Rewards will be added at the end of the day.

“Oi! Rhaehal!” Vesemir shouted, bringing me out of my thoughts, “Are you sleeping with your eyes open? Either start with the Gauntlet or get back to your studies!”

“Vesemir!” a strong voice called out from the inner gates, making both of us look at the Grandmaster Barmin, covered in his signature Wolf School Armor, and his old, wrinkled face pulled into a frown, “Bring your student back to the Hall. The Trials are about to commence.”

“Well, you heard the man,” Vesemir grunted as he remove his fingers from the ledge, dropping fifteen feet without a single stumble, “get your ass back to the Hall Rhaehal. Let’s see how many of your friends stay for the mutations after the speech Master Barmin is about to give.”

“It’s that bad?” I asked, jumping down to arrive next to him, only, I had to bend my knees instead of taking the impact like a mutated killer with cyclops’ bones.

“It’s worst” he cackled, his yellow, slit eyes alive with more amusement than I had seen in the last fourteen years.

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Forty-three boys we had started with, and now only 9 remain,” Barmin began the moment I came to stop alongside the rest of the boys, the wintering Witchers and the mages all standing at a distance from us, “Several could not survive the mutagen laced herbs, mushrooms and plants we were giving them, the stomach corroding away from the insides as they drowned in their own blood. Yet more couldn’t handle the hard training of the Witcher, the physical pains of the growth along with the strenuous drills making them die of exploding hearts and collapsed lungs.”

He stared out at us after those morbid words, his face seemingly carved from stone as the firelight threw his face in sharp relief. “Nine you are, and yet, even more of you shall die in the Trials that are to come,” he paused, bringing out both of his swords from his back and slamming them tip first into the stone at his feet, the tip parting the rock easily as the blades san into it, “That is, if you have the courage, the determination, and the willpower to even attempt them. We will force your bodies to change, blood and elixirs from a variety of monsters mixed together to create the final Mutagens that will be injected inside you. For a week straight you will scream as your muscles tear themselves open, your bones fracture and break, and your innards boil themselves with a raging fever that will grip you, only for all of that to regrow. You will be better, harder, faster, stronger, and a lot more fucking dangerous than before.”

“You will gain much, aye ‘Tis true,” he nodded at us,” but you will lose equally, possibly much more. You will not be a human any longer, not the member of the race you have called your own for your whole. If you survive the forthcoming Trials and can go out on the Path, people will shun you, scorn you, humiliate you…even scam you, all because you will have yellow eyes and two swords on your back. Mutant-filth they call us, when we walk amidst them, and yet when a Griffin or a Hag eats the marrow out of their children, it is us they call out to.”

He walked down the steps, his weighted gaze staring deep into our souls, seeming to measure us in some manner. “Do you have what it takes? To live a life hunting down the worst nightmares this world has to offer? To bath more in blood and entrails than in water? To live a life filled with naught but bloodshed and hatred? To live without knowing whether the next firewyrm’s breath will cook you alive, or some Arachas will do you in? To live without ever experiencing the joys of a wife, permanent home, children?”

Silence descended in the hall in the wake of Barmin’s almost angry words, the echoes of his warnings and question still rumbling through the stone walls of Kaer Morhen. He came to stop right in front of us adn raised his finger towards his right eye, the cornea a sickly black thing, with purple veins branching out of it. The rot, or infection whatever it was, had been there ever since the first time we had seent eh old Witcher, its progress halted by the old Chief Mage of Kaer Morhen, Alzur.

“This was done by the tongue of a Grave Hag,” he said quietly, his single eye unblinking as it looked at something in the distance, “I was in a cemetery of Redania, adn the ground was slick with the black blood of the monster as I carved it up like a cake. But when I went for the final strike, my own footing slipped on the rocks wetted with blood, adn the bloody pest managed to drive its tongue into my eye. Thankfully, its poison was slowed by my mutated state, and Alzur was traveling with me at the time.”

He stood up and turned around, his arms crossed over his chest. “You all are men by the laws of Humans, adn you know the results of what will happen should you go forth with the Trials. A Witcher life is not easy, it is not rewarding and it is sure as hell not comforting in any way. You have seen the scars on our bodies, and you know what most likely happens to the Witcher who isn’t here with us in Winter. Now that I have explained the ramifications of the life we lead…Make your Choice.”