Maribor, Triss and Ruins (Part 1)

Three weeks later.

"Table of food for three, and be quick, we don't have much time." - ordered a large man with a beard, receiving a glance of wary attitude. - "Give us some meat and for the mother of god, bring me good booze and please, no dilution. I like water in bathe with chicks, not in my drinks."

They sat in the corner of the hall, placing swords so they can be accessed on a moments notice.

"Look, that's some company, two guys both with two swords. Hehe, I wanna see how they use them, are they retards? Do they have two dicks each too, hehe?" - said some unbelievably smart drunkard. Well, at least he thought he was very smart to joke like that, but his convives thought otherwise.

"Hush, shitbag, wanna all of us without heads?" - whispered woodcutter with shifty eyes. - "Look at the eyes, bullhead! Ya can't see a witcher?"

"It's not one, two! And a kid... what they here for? Monster?"

"Monster that needs two witchers? Didn't hear about any here... hey hey, but that lass is good, tender skin, young... he'll cost a lot."

"Are you idiot? Two witchers! I bet the lay the cutie every night, hehe."

The moment he finished talking was the moment all their mugs of sour piss they call beer went in explosions and scared them as if the daylight went out for good.

"Fuck my mamma! Wha was that, Baldy?"

"How the fuck should I know, Gutter?" - screamed another one. - "Wa... it should be tha freaks... Imma kill them!"

From the opposite corner of the hall inaudible yelp of surprise didn't reach either of the parties involved, but sharp cornflower blue eyes under the hood stared unblinkingly at the youth in the company of two, not one, witchers. They almost looked like his bodyguards, but she knew that is not the case.

'Speaking of coming home... what a surprise to see such a gem.'

"Lambert... bodyguard? Pff..." - she sneered at the thought, but in any case her curiosity for talents and the fact that the boy was with witchers got better of her.

'Could it be they want to take him to Kaer Morhen? Why? He is past the years for subjection to Trial of the Grasses, if they do this, his organism, already growing past the threshold, will be hard pressed to adapt and most likely it will outright kill the boy.'

It is not out of nonsense that the witchers choose very young people, preferably at the age of five to six. It is the age of the peak adaptivity and human body at this period can be said to be really alterable.

"No way... they will destroy his life!" - whispered woman with a tinge of pity. But than again... what was that outburst of mana and ancient aura, that scared even her, albeit one of the youngest but by far not the weakest of sorceress?

'What kind of lineage does that boy possess to be like that? This is really fascinating! Maribor, ah, Maribor. Never wanted to be here again but my tower was the only place to teleport to. The me before, the helpless girl of the Tower had died on the Sodden Hill. The me now is different and I will live differently.'

She looked at the table, but was reluctant to show herself. At least not here, where everyone knows her. Speaking of a way to attract attention.

"Sit down!" - sounded from the farther reach of the hall. - "No fights in my place." - than a man with sally face and sharp look in the eyes came over. Somehow he seems to have his own share of authority here and most listened to him. - "And you, respectable guests. I sincerely ask you to not cause trouble. It will be a tedious task to clean the floor from lots of intestines."

"Understood, we will break their necks." - gave Lambert a savage grin, but was put down by two pairs of eyes, drilling holes all over his body. That guy's tongue was without bones, it just can't be stopped by normal means.

A witcher equivalent of Dandelion. Don't mix together or shake. Dandelion alone can destroy the world with his bullshit, both of them? Please, no. Great thing Lambert and the bard don't have common ground or it will be a real nuke.

"We are here to eat and be on a road, not to cause trouble." - evenly noted Coen.

"Tch, I personally don't mind gutting these shits, my bet is, they did no small number of great gang deeds. Like stealing, raping and killing." - sneered Lambert and said it very loud, earning himself a wave of cautious fear.

"And then you say they don't like you. I bet they all are shitless happy to have you by their table, Lambert." - said Alan with a sigh. - "Anyway, you guys seem to lack money. They got a situation here."

"Situation? Why don't I know?"

"You looked at the board in the entrance of the city? No? Well I did and I tell you, they got themselves in real deep... situation here." - said Alan, while snuggling a burger out of his 'bag'.

"You have more of these?" - Lambert was looking at his meal with water eyes. Soon he will slave out just for food for sure if this goes on.

"Do you want to hear about work or not?"

"Yes!" - said Coen firmly.

"No!" - refused Lambert immediately and taking a glance at strict partner sighed. - "Fine, shoot it."

"Well, it is simple. Cave. Some unknown ruins. Strange noises and wails at night. And people disappearing from time to time. Guards that were sent by a local lord vanished there. All of them." - said Alan, chewing on his burger under the envious gazes of two witchers. And these gazes were so hungry and so pleading while retaining stoicism of battle-hardened monster slayers, that he relented and gave them their share with a huge sigh.

After more than month and a half of travel here and there and being in company of two witchers, Alan saw the world slightly different and his character became a bit more pragmatic. He still had his share of just thoughts and moral baseline he will never cross, but dead people didn't cause so much aversion and terror like before. As well as a thought of killing for deeds he deemed worthy to be punished by death sentence.

He tried to find a philosophical underline in all this to ease his thoughts.

Witcher is a world of blood, gore, dirt and corpse stench. And a bit of sex. Not like the later matters to him, he is yet to try it. And he didn't want it to be with some whore for hire.

Here people die on daily basis, it is so easy to lose your life that it is becoming nauseating to even think of. One needs strength to even stay alive, let alone have freedom to do so whenever one pleases.

In respect to this, Alan saw even Lambert, after several more talks with him and company, that he rarely had in his travels, began to be less spiteful and more thoughtful at times.

And furthermore, he started to teach Alan seriously. To the point where he forbid him to transform and ride a horse. He had to run after them the whole time.

No pain no gain.

And the later gained a lot. Lambert was first stumped with words considering talent of the boy and his adaptivity, then he experienced existential crisis knowing that even his physical conditions becoming more than that a normal human can have and magic he wields made signs of witchers just a kids bogus.

However even with all this, his learning ability and perfect memory actually only mattered to the respects of mind and neuron net, meaning reflexes, it never gave the body itself much. So albeit his reflexes and battle instincts were far ahead of someone his age or even a versatile mercenary with years of training, the power of his body and experience were still very lacking.

Alan himself noticed, that bloodline, aside from granting him tremendous boost in mana and understanding of space, descended in mostly dormant state couple of weeks prior, after enhancing his body to something on the Coen level. It was very hard to extract even a fraction of it's power now, however what Amalgal warned him about adaptivity proved to be the case.

Looks like he will need some more tedious training to progress further.

'I thought that witcher mutagens and all that is unnecessary, but it seems I can use at least a mild ones to train my bloodline and body faster. Similar to Ciri, who was fed with mushrooms and special water, but never undergone real mutation process. On the contrary, the later might be harmful for me.'

'As for mutagens... I need to research this. Perhaps my bloodline is not what it seems at first glance and I need to mutate it time and time again under stress of either outer stimulus or inner one, as it seems to be ever-changing but lack actual path to use all the dormant force it has. Do I need to borrow other species genes to evolve myself further to unleash more of the power inside myself or not? That's the question.'

Lambert knew not about the thoughts of the boy in his care and only scoffed from time to time saying that calling witchers freaks was misplaced, while Alan exists in this world. But later he suddenly took pride that the person he taught learned everything in a matter of minutes instead of hours, days instead of months...

Weeks instead of years.

Of course Alan's body was developing nicely, but it will take external help and some time, perhaps years, for it to become on par with the one of the perfectly mutated witcher and he can vouch that after a decade even several Geralts won't stand a chance against that enigma of a boy. At least in terms of body power for sure.

That is, if he didn't hit the limit, which is very possible. As there should to be one for any biological being. At least Lambert believed it must be so.

And that's why he decided to take the boy to Kaer Morhen. Alan seems to like the life they were leading and was fascinated with witchers, it could be seen with a naked eye. He was a naturally born monster hunter and adventurer.

So Lambert gave him a suggestion and Alan easily agreed.

A suggestion to undergo witcher training. As for mutagens or even Trial of Grasses, he somehow saw that the boy had no need for that. As if he was a naturally born witcher already.

But little did he know, that neither he, nor Alan himself were even close to understanding the true extent of the power his bloodline has.