15 OMG! How Many Times Is He Going To Use That Helio-trope?

     "Fuck!" Jorgen screamed, as rolled to the side, the Endrega Queen's claw only missing him by an inch.

     An Endrega Queen, four soldiers, and six workers were currently surrounding him and he wasn't entirely certain that he wouldn't be making it out of this precarious predicament. The odds just weren't in his favor. As matter of fact, it wasn't just the odds, literally everything about this scenario was disadvantageous to him.

     He had been heading towards the meet up point that he, Geralt, and Troy had agreed upon, when he came across three Endrega Workers. He normally wouldn't have bothered with the things but his hunting hadn't been all that successful. 

     Sure there were plenty of monsters around but one obviously had to ask themselves if it was really worth to go up against some of these creatures. He had oftentimes, during his trial, wondered if the others had been as unlucky as him in the monsters they came across.

     Chorts, Fiends, Leshens, Spriggans, Dracolizards, and even a damned Shaelmaar, of all things. He had witnessed all this monsters and more during his trial and had made an effort to avoid most of them. He was in an area with an unusually dense population of monsters, which should have been a boon considering he needed to hunt monsters in order to live.

     However, this increased population density actually made it incredibly dangerous to actually fight any of them, lest he risk being caught up in a battle with multiple monsters. It was almost like dying of thirst while on the Ocean. He had spent the entire month only hunting monsters, when it was absolutely necessary, and sometimes even going without food for a while, waiting for easy prey to come along.

     These past few days, around the end  of the trial, he had unfortunately only come across large and  powerful monsters, which he decided to overlook. He hadn't eaten anything in a couple of days and, while this was much less of a hindrance to him than it would be for a normal person, his hunger was growing ever more persistent, whenever he came across the two Endrega workers seemingly all alone.

     He almost felt as if someone had laid a trap for him, either that or the side effects of his partially failed mutations were worse than he originally thought. Whenever he had first come upon the two workers, he couldn't hear or see anything else in the vicinity.

     The two workers were digging on the side of a hill just near its crest. There were no signs, at the time, of any other Endrega nearby but, as soon as he rushed in and took out the first one, the one's surrounding him now had burrowed up from inside the ground on the other side of the crest and began their assault.

     He quickly dispatched the second one and turned to face those replacements, who had quickly arrived at his position and were already attacking him. In that moment of seeing exactly what he was up against, Jorgen realized that he may very well have made the first and possibly last big mistake of his witcher career.

     The moment he realized there were more than two he should have fled immediately. Instead, he had decided to kill the second one and then face these reinforcements, a decision which may very well lead him to his death.

     Jorgen had managed to land a few lucky blows and even snuck in a few Igni signs. However, there were simply too many of them and every time he managed to find an opening on one another would attack, forcing him to dodge.

     Quen had been unquestionably useful during this fight but finding the time to actually reapply it, whenever it shattered, was the tricky part. As he was ducking and dodging the various attacks from the surrounding Endrega, a thought suddenly occurred to him. 'Wait...Heliotrope! Yes, if I can find time to cast it, that just might work!' Jorgen thought hopefully, as he began analyzing his enemies for the slightest opening.

     Even though he hadn't been proficient enough in signs to learn signs other than the basic five. Troy had learned basically all of the signs and had found that the Heliotrope sign was immensely useful. Although it was more difficult to perform than the standard five, Troy couldn't understand why they didn't teach it to all of the trainees.

     While Troy hadn't put up much of a fuss with the mages, he had made sure that Jorgen and Geralt learned it. Telling them that, "It may well save your lives some day."

     As Jorgen finally found the small window he needed to perform the Quen sign he thought, 'Ha! It looks like I really will have to thank Troy for teaching me this.'

     With his Quen shield in place, he focused as hard as he could on trying to form the Igni sign while still dodging the Endrega's attacks. Luckily, this paid off splendidly, as he successfully evaded all of their attacks and then sent out a heat wave towards the Queen and those surrounding her.

     Now with the Queen and her immediate entourage momentarily stunned he stood perfectly still in the middle of their encirclement and crossed his forearms in front of his face. He poured all of his focus and effort into manifesting the Heliotrope shield and hoped that his Quen shield would hold on long enough for him to finish.

     As much as he wanted to panic, whenever his Quen shield broke, he was expecting it and remained focused on his task. 'There! Finally!' Jorgen grinned, as he opened his eyes and saw the many Endrega standing around him attacking him relentlessly only to be completely subverted by his Heliotrope shield.

     With his arms still crossed in front of him, Jorgen had just taken a step forward and was just about to make a break for it, whenever everything around him was engulfed in red hot flames. 

     Jorgen stood there completely stunned. One second he was surrounded by vicious Endrega trying to kill him and the next second he was surrounded by vicious flames trying to kill the Endrega. All the while, the flames danced precariously close but never actually touched him.

-----

     Troy and Geralt finished packing everything into their backpacks, including all the meat they had cooked last night, and shouldered their packs in the twilight hours of the morning. 

     "So, are you ready to go bring our everbuddy back?" Troy asked Geralt.

     "Mn." Geralt nodded in response and began walking in the direction that Jorgen's test had occurred.

     The two had been walking for nearly three hours whenever, on the edge of their senses, they detected several lifeforms skittering about. Most likely some form of Insectoids by the sound of them.

     Geralt thought that he noticed the faint sound of bipedal footsteps shuffling around among them but couldn't be sure. As soon as he turned to Troy to confirm this, Troy was already sprinting full speed towards the sound's origin.

     Geralt took off after him and watched as Troy came to a stop in front of the Endregas that were now plainly visible. As he drew a bit closer he could finally confirm what he had suspected, Jorgen had been completely surrounded by those Endrega and there was even queen with them.

     Geralt drew his silver sword and prepared to jump into the fray, when he noticed Troy was standing there calmly with his hands in the air. Just a moment ago there had been a mild but steady breeze. Now...there was nothing. All the air around him was completely still...

     ...and then heat, flames, a brilliant eruption of fiery death that consumed the entire area where Jorgen and the Endrega's had been standing.

     It only lasted for a few seconds but those seconds were enough to completely fry the Endrega that were revealed in the aftermath. Although, Jorgen seemed to be completely untouched by the flames. Not only that, for an entire foot around his feet the earth and foliage were also completely untouched.

     Jorgen attempted to make out the image of the two on the other side of the smoke, even though he already knew who it was.

     "Troy?" Jorgen probed. 

     "Don't 'Troy' me! What the hell did you think you were doing?" Troy retorted.

     "Whaddya mean? I was fighting for my damned life! Whaddya think I was doing?"

     "Really!? With Heliotrope?!"

     "Wha...yeah, I mean you even said it might save my life some day and it just did. I don't see the problem here."

     "Good grief, Jorgen! Have you already forgotten what I told you about Heliotrope? Because it looked to me like you were trying to commit suicide by Heliotrope! You activated the damn thing and then just stand there, with a goofy grin on your face, letting them hit you! How much longer do you think that shield would have lasted, huh?"

     "Well, I mean I was just about to move. I had literally taken my first step forward whenever your flames erupted around me."

     "Just about to! You were surrounded by a dozen Endrega, including a queen, and you were about to move. As opposed to, I don't know, already moving or moving the instant that the shield activated. Seriously, Jorgen, if you're gonna use Heliotrope then you need to use it responsibly or can end up being even bigger threat to you than whatever you're trying to protect against.

     "While only sorcerers and sources can control environmental choas, everything has Chaos in it to some degree or another. Being a witcher, with all of your mutations, you have more Chaos than most. But, whenever using Heliotrope, only the initial shield is conjured from environmental Chaos, like most other signs. 

     "Once that initial shield is in place, the shield is then linked to your own internal Chaos and can drain you completely dry, if you aren't careful. Do I really need to remind you what happens whenever something, even a 'non-magical' something is drained of all of its Chaos?"

     Jorgen began looked more and more pale the more Troy continued speaking. In his haste, it seemed he had let some ever so critical pieces of information slip his mind, regarding the proper usage of the Heliotrope sign. He could hardly even argue the point, because he truly had stalled instead of immediately springing into action the moment the sign took effect.

     'Damn! And here I was about to go on about how I had everything under control! Man, it looks like I really owe Troy for pulling my dumb ass out of that one! As for how to respond...hmmm…let's go with excuses!' Jorgen thought, as a series of mild emotions played across his face for the other two to witness.

     "Look! I get it! I messed up! But come on, man, I haven't eaten anything in two days! Can a starving man get some damn slack here! Geeze!"

     "Haven't eaten in two days? What hell have you been doing out here? Are there not any other monsters around here?" This time Geralt had to speak up. There had never been a lack of monsters in his neck of the mountains.

     "Well, I don't know what it was like for you guys but back there..." Jorgen pointed in the direction from which he had come. "...the monsters are thick as winter tree sap. There are so many of them that it's actually quite dangerous to pick a fight with any of them for fear of drawing attention from the others.

     After hearing this, Troy and Geralt both looked at each other with skeptically skewed eyebrows. 

     "What? You don't believe me? Fine then! Go head! You guys can head on back out there and find out for yourselves, if you want! As for me, I already told you. I'm starving! I'm about to crack open one of these Endrega."

     "Hold on there, Jorgen! It just so happens that Geralt and I cooked a whole deer worth of venison last night. We were waiting for you to start eating but you never showed. Now that you're here, let's head back to our camp and have ourselves what might be the only celebratory feast that we'll get. We can come back and check out those monsters some other time."

     "Haha! Now that's what I'm talking about! Although, I'll need something to hold me over, until we get to the camp."

     "Certainly!" Troy responded, as he took out a bit of the cured venison he had in his pack, tossed it to Jorgen, and then led the other two back to their previous camp site.

     The three white haired witchers settled in at their camp, devoured nearly all of the venison Troy had cooked the night before, and shared their various accounts of the monsters they'd faced, during the trial.

     Suffice it to say, Geralt and Jorgen were completely stunned to hear that Troy had to face off against two Chorts right out of the gate. Although, each of them had certain aspects of their trials that made them more difficult than the other's.

     As the sun finally fell and the moon claimed its empty throne, the three witchers finished off the night immensely satisfied with having finally passed all of their trials and being reunited. Their only regret of the evening being the painful absence of any form of alcohol.

     The next morning Jorgen had insisted upon staying at the camp to eat and relax. The other two, however, had decided they would head back to Jorgen's trial area to confirm his claims. Since, he had continued to insist upon their reliability, even into the next morning.

     Of course, Jorgen hadn't lied and it's not like Troy or Geralt truly doubted him. It was simply such an absurd thing that they had to witness it for themselves. And witness it they did. They didn't spend much time in the area but the time they did spend there left no room in their minds for doubt.

     Having finally made their way back to camp, they once again packed up, cleaned up, and set forth. They knew their destination already, Ard Carraigh. They had plans to make a round trip from there to Oxenfurt, to Vizima, to Maribor, to Rivia, to Vengerberg, to Vergen, and then back to Ard Carraigh and Kaer Morhen.

     Troy had already informed Nazad of his plans and, although he had been amenable to them, he hadn't done so without plenty of reminding him how fortunate he was to have a benevolent Master such as himself, who would make such concessions. The Brotherhood of Sorcerers, he reminded Troy would never have permitted such a thing.

     After a few lengthy lectures, Nazad had blessed his pupil's desire to travel and had even acquiesced to his request for a manual that detailed training and studying that he could do on the road, so as to not fall too far behind in his magical studies.

     Already having everything they needed, they made a quick stop at Kaer Morhen to pick up their horses, another nice little perk of becoming a full fledged witcher. Not even bothering to go inside, they simply strode over to the stables, presented their Witcher Medallions and returned their black trial medallions to prove they were newly proven witchers, chose from the available horses, and then promptly road off into the distance.

     Happily leaving Kaer Morhen behind, they all three talked and joked about all the things they hoped to see and do, while on their journey. While they had already thrown themselves a rather low key celebratory feast, they still had their hearts set on a lavish feast fit for royalty. Thus, their first order of business would be contracts, contracts, and more contracts!