The Witcher: Elder Blood

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***

From my early years, when I was no taller than a kitchen table, my mind was consumed by two hobbies that to this day occupy all my free time.

Sports was the first of them. It became not just one of my hobbies, but also a kind of foundation for my growing up, and later my job.

In my short life, and I am only twenty-five years old, I have been involved in various sports, mostly quite dangerous.

Extreme sports won my heart and I tried to devote as much time to them as possible.

Deep sea diving, which almost became my demise due to 'nitrogen anaesthesia', or rock climbing are what I do to this day. My last hobby was basejumping, which I started to combine with rock climbing.

While diving didn't seem to be a particularly dangerous sport for my parents, as they didn't understand the problems associated with deep diving, the other sports really got on their nerves.

Unlike me, who felt a rush of pleasure from the sense of extreme sports and going outside of normal life, they were quieter people and were more into business.

Thanks to their business, I had less time to make money. Nevertheless, the high income has contributed to the well-being of our family for generations.

But that was only the first hobby that greatly influenced my life. The second was stories.

No, not history per se, but specifically fictional stories or simple fairy tales as a child. I studied a lot of them, sometimes listening to explanations of some world's lore while I climbed another cliff.

Some stories were taken from films, some from books, there were also combined and supplemented with games. The main thing is that they should be interesting - that's my opinion. One of such stories was the series 'The Witcher Saga', which is currently being written by one of my parents' friends.

One weekend, the now-not-young writer visited my parents, whom he had known for a long time. Their conversation then turned to books and his desire to write a new novel.

My mother found a stack of drafts that she said used to belong to my great-grandmother.

They spoke of a wonderful world called Neverland. It was a world inhabited by many races, but they weren't born into it. They came to it from other worlds, similar or completely different. This was due to the Conjunction of the Spheres that she had written about.

It was clear from my great-grandmother's drafts that she had imagination, but she was not a very good writer.

As I knew, she was even considered to be a little sick in the head, because she claimed in the family circle that she herself came from this world. Well, maybe her head was a problem, but my great-grandfather didn't care about that, because there were few people who could compare to her in beauty.

However, a family friend liked the story of such a world, and decided to rewrite these drafts, making them into a full-fledged story that would be of interest to readers.

I myself wondered what exactly he would be able to write on such a world. Still, my great-grandmother's drafts, which I had already read, were more like a lore wikipedia that talked about important parts of that world.

Like about races or certain monsters. I was interested in the information about witches, the kind of monster hunters. Heh, ghostbusters came to mind. Well, they are not so cool, after all, witches have two swords, and given their job, in which you have to fight monsters for money, perhaps the third is in his trousers.

With my spirits lifted in this way, I prepared for my second flight in a wingsuit. It's also called a wingsuit. It was an extension of rock climbing and base-jumping.

- Ready? - The instructor's voice sounded nearby.

I don't have much experience in a wingsuit, I've only flown it twice before.

- I think so, totally.

- Okay, do you need help with the camera? - The man asked, to which he received a positive nod.

Of course, the camera for filming the flight, as with other sports, I shot similar videos, thus gaining views on my channel.

Okay, time to make it look good.

A jump and then a somersault marked the beginning of the fall. Spreading my limbs out to the sides, I caught the air currents, flying downwards at a slight angle.

A slight smile appeared on my face, as it always does in these situations, as my eyes picked out the flight path.

Not the first, but just as unforgettable flight, it was without complications. Having flown along the planned route, I was about to fly into the stone arch connecting two nearby mountains.

And everything would have been fine, if not for the sudden intervention of nature: a piece of stone broke off from the upper part of the arch, and when I flew through it, this stone hit my head.

From the sudden blow to my head, I was immediately winded, which wasn't good news - my arm caught part of the mountain, thus causing an unpleasant pain in it.

My body began to spin, hurtling towards the ground. The daze caused by the fallen rock didn't allow me to open the parachute in time, and when I fully came to my senses, it was too late to save myself thanks to it.

The only thing left to do was to close my eyes while feeling the fear of the collision.

***

- Come on, dummy, where are your drowning men? I told you there wouldn't be any.

Near the riverbank, three boys were looking around. One of them, the grumpiest, Lambert, was trying to pick on a boy named Eskel for the umpteenth time. Even though Lambert was the youngest of the trio, it didn't stop him from irritating the older ones every time.

- Shut up, or you'll get it,' Eskel couldn't stand the teasing from his younger friend, and was about to ask him a question when the third boy with white hair called out to them:

- Look,' he pointed his finger in the direction of one of the moving bushes and prepared to fight with a short blade.

Each of them had one, the ones they had trained with in Caer Morhen, the stronghold of the witches from the Wolf School.

Each witch had undergone gruelling training from childhood onwards, as well as the Herbal Trial, designed to reshape their bodies. Many died in the course of these rebuilds.

This trio passed the test, only Geralt had noticeable changes, except for the colour of each of their eyes, and the boy's hair turned white, a peculiar side effect.

The trio stood in a row, preparing to deal with a drow, or even a couple of them.

It was not destined to happen, a fox ran out of the bushes, wanting to drink water from the river, but seeing the boys standing there, hid back, deciding to drink a little further.

- Ha-ha, that's a drowning fox, not like in the books,' Lambert laughed, while an irritated Eskel kicked a tree that had fallen a long time ago.

- There's nothing to do here, let's go back,' said Geralt.

It seemed doubtful to him to go to the river to fight the drowned men, but he did not object to his friend, and decided to keep them company.

Unlike Lambert, who did not care about how other witches treated him, Geralt tried to maintain good relations with 'fellow witches'. When many acquaintances die from the Trial of Weed, and adult witches don't always return to Caer Morhen, leaving their lives on the highway, one begins to value friendship more.

As they were about to leave, a spatial rift opened in the sky above the river, and a human figure emerged from it.

Dressed in what the boys thought were strange clothes, the man flew into the water, where he was covered by a cloth.

- Wow, that doesn't look like a drowned man,' whistled Lambert.

The others didn't respond to his next joke and ran into the water to pull the man out.

The man couldn't manage it on his own, as he had passed out from the displacement. Fortunately, he had managed to open his parachute back in the last world, thus cushioning the impact with the water.

The two boys, with strength disproportionate to their size, quickly pulled the man out of the water. Geralt checked his condition and confirmed that he was still alive.

- What to do with him? - Eskel asked, examining the strange clothing. - Why does he need so much cloth? Is this a blanket?

- I don't know. We should take it to the tutor,' the white-haired man answered.

- Why do we need it? - Lambert was sceptical about that plan.

- 'Because people don't just appear in the air, especially ... in this form,' Heralt replied, thus putting an end to their decision.