Chapter 62

"This is just great, exactly what I wanted to do today. Walking in winter through knee-high freezing water to fight a hellbeast. Really, the best homecoming I could have asked for." Lambert had been complaining ever since we left the fortress half an hour ago.

"Oh shut up. If all goes well we can get the manuscript to a very nice sword, not to mention killing a major threat in the region." I said.

"True, and I might also see you get thrashed around like a ragdoll. That would also be fun." Lambert shot back.

"If you consider dragging my bleeding and broken body back to the castle fun, then more power to you," I shot back. "Personally, I'd reconsider your definition of the term."

"Would you two stop arguing, I swear the chort is going to hear us coming a mile off if you keep this up." Vesemir glared at the two of us like the parent of two unruly siblings bickering in the backseat of a car while on a family trip. Considering how difficult getting to the chort cave had been, it wasn't a totally far off comparison.

Following the river was easy in theory, less so in practice, due to narrow paths on both sides to the point we had to half-climb along the earth walls the river cut through if we didn't want to swim up it. That was something none of us wanted to do, neither in full gear nor at the start of winter. Therefore we were moving on foot rather than horseback, carefully navigating what footholds we could find while clinging to sides as much as we can.

Sadly, despite our best efforts, when we spotted the entrance of the cave at the last leg of the trip we were forced to make a final swim over through the freezing cold water to reach it. So when we made the shore we were soaked, cold, and bitter, even after we used small amounts of Igni to basically blow dry us a bit.

Thankfully I had just the solution! With a flourish I pulled three bottles out of my belt and handed them out.

"This is one of the potions you were working on?" Vesemir asked as he sniffed the bottle I handed him which held a blue colored liquid.

"Yup. Don't worry, I made sure to test it so it not only worked but wasn't so toxic as not to be worth drinking." I said as I held my own bottle.

"Normally I don't drink strange liquids unless they come from a pretty lady. What is this stuff supposed to do anyway?" Lambert asked while eyeing his own bottle suspiciously.

"I'm glad you asked! This here is a potion of my own creation that when consumed increases blood circulation in the body a great deal, and therefore warms you up in the process. Of course, it is only really safe for Witchers since besides the toxicity of the ingredients bodies that don't have tougher internal bits like us couldn't handle pumping all that blood so hard for long. Made from fire essence and various other ingredients I don't want to waste time naming. I call it… Hearth Heart!" I said with some flare.

The two Wolf Witchers just stared at me before Vesemir spoke up. "It's… not a terrible name, but…"

"How about you leave the naming to those who don't make up silly sounding ones." Lambert finished with a smirk.

"Screw you guys, I'm keeping that one." I grumbled and took a shot of my potion. The familiar feeling of my heart racing and body temp going up quickly hit me. It was a slightly uncomfortable feeling, but at least I wasn't as cold nor were my veins bursting from the increased pressure.

Vesemir and Lambert followed my example and I enjoyed seeing their faces light up, a bit literally since a side effect of potion made your face flush a little from the increased blood flow.

"Huh, not bad. I can certainly see this being useful if you were ever forced on a contract during colder weather, even through the snow." Vesemir pointed out.

"I'll admit, beats being freezing when we kill the chort at least." Lambert admitted as he stared at the cave before us. He sniffed the air and spat into the river. "Yep, I can smell it from here."

"You two don't forget your relict oil," Vesemir reminded us. Lambert rolled his eyes at the reminder, but for me allowed me to ask a question that always bugged me back on Earth.

"This might be due to lost memories and all, but out of all the monster classifications 'relicts' confuse me the most. What is the similarity between them all? Are they really old or something, which is why it sounds so similar to 'relic'?" I asked.

"Ahhh, now that is an interesting question." Vesemir started in his lecturing tone.

"Oh boy, you've done it now. I'm gonna go sharpen my blade or something." Lambert said as he walked off to the side and took out a portable whetstone.

Vesemir ignored the comment and kept on going. "That which binds together relicts is not their age, though all are ancient by most creatures' standards, but rather their nature. Not only are all relicts inherently magical in nature but it shows itself in some aspect of their nature or relating to it. While elementa are beings of the elemental planes or powered by the elements, relicts are powered by the material plane directly."

"Huh, I think I get it. So that means like… godlings embody the land they live in, which is why they usually disappear if a location becomes too populated. Leshen, Spriggans and Sylvans embody forests and nature. Shaelmaars reflect the element of earth or stone…. Where does that leave creatures like fiends and chorts though?" I asked curiously.

"They are beings of the hunt, of aggression. They embody the fight to overcome and survive - or at least that's what the old books say. Others suggest they are corrupted forest spirits who have gone mad with rage and an urge to destroy, or demons who have possessed normal animals and over time mutated their base forms. The point is that while they will avoid civilization when possible, they take glee out of destroying it when it comes to them. Makes them some of the most dangerous monsters since they won't run away, but keep fighting until either their enemies or themselves are dead." Vesemir finished.

"Wow, that was legitmentally interesting." I said with honesty.

"At least somebody thinks so." Vesemir stared over at Lambert.

"Teacher's pet," said Witcher muttered in response as he inspected his sword. "Are we done with story time yet? At this rate we might as well let the chort die of old age."

"But can't they grow to extreme-" I was rudely interrupted.

"It's an expression! Gods!" Lambert threw his hands into the air.

---

"An old bull. No wonder Berengar retreated, much like good wine age just makes relicts stronger." Vesemir whispered to us by our hiding place behind a corner.

Around said corner we could see, hear, and smell the sleeping form of the chort before us. Between Cat and our senses it was easy to make out the curled up form of the beast covered in a great deal of rippling muscle and bearing some wicked looking horns.

Its snoring was like a car's engine revving and it smelled goddamned awful! Like tons of old blood, sweat, urine, and musk from where it had marked its territory all through the cave. To say nothing of the mounds of rotting carcasses of its prey that it had dragged back here over the years, small hills of them all over the cave. Most were nothing but broken bones from various animals, other monsters and even some humanoids!

I have no idea how far it must have had to range in order to get those or if they were from a time when the valley was more populated. Either way, this thing was dangerous.

"We're in luck. Seems to have fattened up and already fallen asleep for winter, gives us time to prepare more assuming we don't do anything too loud to wake it up." Vesemir noted.

"Good to know. I know I said I would reduce my Sign use to only Quen… but that doesn't rule out bombs or traps, right?" I asked.

"I'm already allowing you to have one restriction. I would be a bigger ass than Lambert if I added more on top of that, and in reality as a Witcher you would back out until you were 100% again. What did you bring?" Vesemir asked me.

I patted the satchel at my side with a grin. "Samum, Dancing Star, Devil's Puffball, and Northern Wind. Blinding, burning, poisoning, and freezing. Also made a couple of snaring traps and the like that should at least trip up the chort." I listed as I dug around in my bag.

"Sounds good then. We'll leave the set up to you. Just give the signal when ready." Lambert said in a rare moment of seriousness, most likely due to literally being in the lair of the beast.

I got to work.

---

I threw a rock at the chort, and I missed.

Even the stone hitting the ground next to it and the impact echoing through the cave didn't cause it to stir at all!

I swear I could hear Lambert's muted chuckling behind me.

Screw this, plan B.

"Hey you overgrown sow! Is your fat ass so tired from stuffing its face you can't get up and try to get a real meal? How about you show me you aren't some overgrown goat with anger issues!" I yelled insultingly as loud as I could, my voice echoing around the cave.

That got a reaction.

The chort's eyes blinked open, and it quickly stood up from its sleeping position. It stared at me, nostrils flared - and screamed, a sound so full of rage and hate that I could barely fathom the depth of it. Pawing at the ground, it lowered its head and charged at me in a blur that was so fast a mere human would never have been able to react in time.

Fortunately for me, there was nothing 'mere' about this human. I pirouetted to the right, dancing out of the way of its enraged charge - which led straight into my prepared trap ground. I'd opted for a grease trap and a poison gas trap, and both were activated flawlessly. The grease caused it to have weakened footing, while the gas entered its lungs and began working away on its life-force. Furthermore, I'd waited to get its attention until I was standing in front of one of the cave's walls - disoriented by the gas and unable to stop because of the grease, it skidded head-first straight into the solid rock wall.

It was impressive how instead of its skull cracking open hitting solid stone at that speed, it was the wall that cracked a bit.

It staggered back, obviously stunned by the impact. I didn't give it a chance to recover - but instead of going for the head or neck, one armored and one covered in massive layers of muscle, I went for the rear. And, winding up, gave it a bladed colonoscopy. The chort screamed again, this time in agony and terror instead of rage. It lashed back with a clawed foot, shattering my Quen, and forced me to pull back and create some space. Blood was pouring down its rump, and its rear legs threatened to give out.

The chort was already dead. It just didn't realize it yet.

I think it did once Vesemir and Lambert came out from their hiding places on the sides and added their own oiled-up silver swords on the chort's flanks, causing even more intense bleeding. To the monster's credit it rightly earned its reputation as a fighter and tried to chase after us, sadly all the damage to its rear slowed it a great deal and moving around just caused it to bleed out faster.

It took a minute or two for the thing to finally collapse after playing cat and mouse with the three of us, but judging by its shallow breathing it wasn't long for the world. I gave it the mercy it would likely never give its prey and angled my next stab underneath it's chin and to its brain to finally kill it.

"The point of all this was to fight it with your sword more… but I will admit I don't mind easy fights, and your swings were certainly sharper and more focused during the fight than when we were sparring. You still got lots of learning to do to be even a fraction of my level, though." Lambert shrugged. I just smiled at his praise, faint thought it might have been.

"This was a good kill. Used our wits and the environment to turn what would have been a hard straight up fight into something much more manageable. And we removed a potential threat to Kaer Morhen and the rest of Kaedwen in the process. All in all, a good days' work." Vesemir clapped me on the shoulder. "Well done, Griffin. You remember how to harvest the mutagens from a chort?"

"I do, though I think the real prize is Berengar's notes. Mind if I look around for it while you and Lambert handle this till I find something?" I asked.

Vesemir shook his head. "No, you harvest the chort while Lambert and I look for Berengar's notes. Not only do we have a better idea of what to look for, but this is part of your ongoing assessment."

"Fineeee. Leave me the stinking corpse while you guys treasure hunt." I muttered and got my carving knife out.

Lambert poked me in the side. "Don't you know? Plebs get the grunt work, seniors get the glamor work." He shot me a cocky grinbefore throwing back another Cat, the better to explore the cave and look for any loot.

"Keep that up and I'll leave this thing's head in your bed." I mock threatened, but got to work with no further complaint. While chort meat was highly toxic even for Witchers we could still use the horns, hide, eyes, liver and other parts for crafting and alchemy.

"Yeah, yeah. Hey, old man, gonna check out the front first; you start in the back, and we'll meet in the middle," Lambert called out while scanning the ground.

Vesemir nodded, and commenced his part of the search.

So we did our respective jobs and other than the sounds of me carving and bones being moved around no one said a thing as we focused on our tasks at hand.

Until, that is, Lambert made a triumphant cry near one of the mounds of bones. "Found something!" he said as he held up a beaten-up sack.

I paused in my carving to walk over and Vesemir did the same from where he was searching the cave, and by the time we arrived Lambert had already opened the sack and was looking through its contents.

"Let's see here… some rusty basic bladesmithing tools, some preserved ingredients, pieces of various ores and… here we are! A journal! A bit moldy around the edges but seems mostly good." Lambert started flicking through the pages. "Mostly stuff filled around making the sword you mentioned, what works and what doesn't, that kinda thing."

Lambert handed the journal over to Vesemir who flipped to the end. "Huh, seems like the final ingredient Berengar was looking for to stabilize the metal working process was chort blood. Seems like it was needed to make metal for Tor'haerne not to be so brittle. After losing all this progress, it makes sense why Berengar left in a huff. He could have asked for help but… well, his loss is the guild's gain I suppose."

"You think we can make this and the Wolven steel sword at some point?" I asked curiously.

"It'll be hard work, but I learned a thing or two about forging over the years. I'm no master but I can follow instructions at least. Just a matter of materials and trying till I get it right." Vesemir assured me.

"Great! Let's pack up the rest of the chort and burn the remainder before we go back."

"Lovely, more swimming." Lambert grumbled.

---

As we stepped into the main hall once more the weather had picked up quite a bit, the snow coming down at a steady pace beyond the small amount earlier. We entered in high spirits with our well-earned booty in hand.

Which was why I was surprised to see a red-faced Ivar mad-marching towards us with a nervous-looking Leo in tow. I thought he was upset we didn't bring him along, but the next words out his mouth were about something else entirely.

"Grandmaster Vesemir! I would like to lodge a formal complaint with your guild about your treatment of one of your members and my closest friend!" Ivar said with polite rage, oddly enough.

"Oh? And what's the complaint?" Vesemir said, his arms crossed.

"The unjustified use of corporal punishment against Markus of Kovir for for what you perceived as his faults where none was needed, and in a overly violent manner!" Ivar explained and my eyes widened as I realized what he was talking about.

"Wait, did you put the newbie here through the Breaker?" Lambert spoke up, eyes narrowed as he glared towards Vesemir.

"Ivar, there's no reason to-" I tried to say.

"Markus, there is every reason to say something! And as your friend I ask that you please sit down and shut up while I say what needs to be said, to both of you!"

And I did just that, mostly because I was too shocked to argue with the enraged scholar.