{ pfsb } The Isle of Mists

[bialy_wilk]

He'd had to force himself to slow down, to take their time as they traveled. First to Novigrad, to speak with Zoltan and Roche; then to board a ship to Skellige, where Ermion agreed to assist without hesitation and where Queen Cerys offered the aid of her finest knight – her brother, Hjalmar. He gets a message to Triss, does his best to do the same for Keira and Letho, somewhere in the wilderness.

Geralt sends them all to Kaer Morhen, and knows it won't be enough.

Lan Wangji is a quiet, reserved traveling companion. Geralt feels a pang at separating him from his husband, but it's not enough to make him want to send the cultivator back. Selfishly, he wants the man here, in case Ciri is in trouble. In case he needs to send her with her friend while he himself holds the path behind them.

They rise early, travel all the day, and camp at dark. On the ship to Skellige, Geralt meditates, his only other option to prowl the decks like the wolf of his name. And once they've reached the islands and found their allies, Cerys gives them a small sailing dinghy and sets them on their way.

Geralt steers them to the very edge of the archipelago, past looming, jagged rocks and endless tracts of gray, wavering sea, until they reach a place where the mists curl ethereal fingers along the edge of Lan Wangji's robes. The witcher heaves the little boat to, then reaches for the bottle he's stored in the qiankun bag Lan Wangji had gifted him what feels like a lifetime ago. "This had better work," he mutters, and uncorks the glass bottle to free the firefly spirit which Avallac'h had conjured. It flutters into the air, then describes a slightly wobbling path into the gray, hazy depths of the mists which stretch before them.

Comments

[lightamidchaos]

He makes a sound of acknowledgement and keeps Gaspard between himself and Geralt as he fights. Speed and timing are essential, especially with the witcher's advice.

Fortunately, Lan Wangji is skilled at both. One of the foglets flashes into a physical form, reaching for the dwarf, and is met with the edge of Bichen's blade across its chest in a swift diagonal strike.

[bialy_wilk]

Silver sparks fly into the air as Geralt tosses a Moon Dust bomb, forcing the foglet he's fighting into corporeal form. It shrieks and lunges at him with curved claws; he lops off one of its hands and turns swiftly to avoid its charge.

[lightamidchaos]

Gaspard yells in fear and crouches on the ground, hands over his head. Lan Wangji spins as Geralt turns out of the path of the foglet's charge and slices over the dwarf and into the lunging creature.

[bialy_wilk]

The foglet flickers around Bichen's blade, then slumps to the ground. Geralt spins and slices his silver blade across the other foglet as it solidifies. The creature shrieks and dies, leaving them in the mist's muffled silence.

... Almost. "You've got to be kidding me," Geralt mutters, and strides over to where the dwarf is curled, fast asleep and snoring, on the path. "Hey!" He nudges the dwarf with the toe of his boot. "Wake up!"

[lightamidchaos]

"Right, right, just a wee bit longer," the dwarf mumbles.

"Unbelievable," Lan Wangji mutters. "How has he survived this long?"

[bialy_wilk]

"Makes you wonder how many of them there were in the beginning, doesn't it?" The witcher nudges the dwarf a little harder. "Come on, get up."

Gaspard yawns and blinks groggily, then climbs to his feet and staggers along with them until he wakes up a little more. "Know much about this isle?" he asks, apparently feeling as chatty as his friend.

"Almost nothing," Geralt tells him, leading the way along the path.

"You know it ain't on any map," the dwarf comments, and Geralt shakes his head. "A common characteristic of enchanted islands."

[lightamidchaos]

Gaspard gasps in wonder. "You think it's enchanted?"

"Mn," Lan Wangji observes, eyeing him.

[bialy_wilk]

"So what is it that brings you to this strange place?" the dwarf wants to know.

Geralt glances along the path that branches, then takes the left-hand path which leads them back up along the slope. "Looking for someone."

"Here?" Gaspard's tone shows how surprised he is at the thought.

"Just kind of turned out that way," Geralt points out, then nods ahead. "Hut's right up there."

[lightamidchaos]

Gaspard nods and stifles a yawn. "This place seems safe enough," he agrees. "Just be sure and come back - and make it quick, eh? Not that much to see here."

"We do not plan to linger," Lan Wangji informs him, very, very coolly.

[bialy_wilk]

The dwarf Ivo waves amiably to his compatriot, and Geralt turns back to Lan Wangji and the path.

"One more," he mutters, as they head back down towards the shoreline. "Not too excited about that roar Gaspard said he heard."

[lightamidchaos]

"I agree." Lan Wangji slants a sideways look at him, then returns to scanning the countryside through the mist. "If he is lucky it will not have eaten him. Yet."

[bialy_wilk]

"I wouldn't take bets on it," Geralt says, grim.

His expression only turns more sour as the path leads them down into a misty, swampy area. He holds up a hand to pause Lan Wangji, and kneels down to study an immense depression in the wet soil. "Fiend," he mutters, and takes out his bottle of relict oil to re-coat his blade.

"Relict oil, if you have it. And they hate loud sounds, so your guqin will come in handy. Don't let yourself look at its third eye; it can hypnotize hunters with it."

[lightamidchaos]

"I will remember," he says, as he reaches into his qiankun bag for the correct oil.

"If you secure its attention I could use the Chord Assassination technique."

[bialy_wilk]

"That won't be a problem," the witcher says, desert-dry, and nods to the swamp. "Let's go."

Maybe the only good thing about fiends is that their large size makes them easy to spot. Of course, it also makes them annoyingly difficult to kill, and gives them a real advantage when it comes to fighting. In this case, he hears the fiend and sees its immense shape materializing out of the gloom at almost the same time, then signals to Lan Wangji. "Watch out," he mutters. "They move faster than you'd think for such big creatures."

So saying, he shifts to the side, away from Lan Wangji, and raises his voice. "Hey! Over here!"

The fiend – right now looking more like a small hillock in the fog than a living creature, raises its head up... and up... and up. It towers over them, as tall as a hut, its many-branching horns like an old oak tree. Seeing the witcher, it bellows a challenge, paws angrily at the earth, and charges, each wickedly sharp prong aimed towards his gut.

[lightamidchaos]

Light gleams from Lan Wangji's hands as it commits to the movement, and a guqin string flashes across in front of the fiend, burying one end in a nearby tree and another in a large boulder. The string thrums and a wave of sound as sharp as a blade slices out toward the fiend.

As it does, Lan Wangji leaps into the air, flipping himself up and over to come down behind the thing, a second string snapping around its throat as he moves.

[bialy_wilk]

The fiend's head snaps back as the string catches it and as the sound wave slams into it. Its bellow of anger and pain shakes the ground they stand on and alarms a flock of birds that had been resting in a nearby tree. They take to the sky in a confused cloud as the witcher springs forward, his silver sword flashing as it slices into the fiend's tough hide.

[lightamidchaos]

The thought flickers that it is far, far easier to execute this technique with proper tools rather than cobbled-together bowstrings, before he ignores the past in favor of them both surviving the present.

The guqin string winds tight around the fiend's throat, sinking in. As it does, Lan Wangji strikes with Bichen, burying it to the hilt between the fiend's shoulders.

[bialy_wilk]

The fiend shrieks and lashes out with its horned head, sending Geralt rolling to get out of the way. He arrows back in to hack at its side, the silver sword scoring its thick hide as the beast roars and attempts to catch them in either its horns or its huge clawed paws.

[lightamidchaos]

It rakes a blade-edged paw back over its head at him, trying to tear him loose. Lan Wangji rips Bichen free and leaps back and skyward, summoning his guqin again as he does. He hits the fiend with chord after explosive chord, keeping the target focus narrow so the witcher will not be harmed.

[bialy_wilk]

The fiend bleeds from a dozen gashes in its hide as it struggles against the enchanted string and staggers beneath the force of Lan Wangji's cultivation technique.

Geralt fights in silence, whirling in to cut and away again to avoid the fiend's claws and horns and teeth, striking swift and hard until finally the creature gives a great rattling cry and collapses to the ground, its great sides falling still.

[lightamidchaos]

He lands as lightly as a falling leaf and holds himself ready, waiting for Geralt to confirm its death before he relaxes his watchful defense.

[bialy_wilk]

No sense in letting a fiend's corpse go to waste. He ensures it's dead, then kneels to harvest the various parts that go into some of his more obscure recipes, or which sell well to the various merchants in Novigrad.

Finally, he straightens and looks around. "Any sign of the last dwarf?"

[lightamidchaos]

"There are signs of a scuffle," Lan Wangji offers, breaking off from his study of the surrounding area. "Leading that way."

[bialy_wilk]

"Better check it out."

He follows the tracks and the broken branches, then kneels beside the crumpled form of what probably used to be Ferenc. "Tried to outrun the fiend," he mutters. "Too bad."

[lightamidchaos]

Lan Wangji lets out a quiet sigh and nods. "He would not have been fast enough."