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zoltanberrigomo · 4 years

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The Incompetent Witcher, Chapter 7

The contessa had offered him two thousand orens, an astronomical sum, and he was sorely tempted to accept; yet he was certain that if he tried to impersonate her dead husband, he would be quickly found out. How would he know what to say? What did he know about decorations, balls, the lot of it?

Such were Thyssen’s thoughts as he stabled his horse on the outskirts of Oxenfurt, having just returned from the contessa’s estate, and began making his way back to his room along the city’s cobblestone streets. It had grown dark in the meanwhile and the spring evening seemed particularly beautiful, the bright shopwindows casting what seemed like magical lights onto the dusky streets.

He stopped next to a store that had maps of the northern kingdoms in its windows, all beautifully handcrafted. He paused to admire them, but, looking at the price tag, it turned out they were quite far out of his price range. Still, he opened the door and stepped inside.

It was a bookshop he had stepped into and its inside felt like a different world. The sweet scent of incense pervaded the air; luxurious Zerrikanean rugs covered the walls; books were stacked all over each other, occasionally spilling over to the floor. Thyssen picked up a book at random. A Treatise on the Magical Resonances of Nightshades. He picked up another one, but it had a title in the elven language he could not read. The next one was entitled, A History of the Northern Kingdoms between the Ninth and Twelth Centuries, and he opened it somewhere at random and began to read.

History does not record, reader, which part of Count Montpessier’s acclaimed History of the Northern Kingdoms caught Thyssen’s eye just then, but is it too much for me to think it might have been an account of the First Battle of the Pontar Delta? I am, of course, well aware that the indolent youth of our age throw orens around as if they were confetti but would not recognize a book if it hit them on the head; and thus I cannot take for granted that you, reader, are aware of what transpired at that battle. It was the time when the forces of Vestibor the Proud, the tragic and ruler of a state that long later became our great Redanian commonwealth, were betrayed by his Temerian allies to gain advantage in the ever-continuing tussle for supremacy amongst our kingdoms. I’d like to think that, just then, Thyssen burned with outrage at the Temerian capacity for treachery and betrayal as he read.

In any case, whatever it was that he read impressed him enough that he decided to spare a few orens and purchase the book; and so he made his way to the counter where, it turned out, a heated argument was in progress.

“Third edition, I’ve said, third edition! T-h-i-r-d! This is worse than useless to me.”

“My good sir, there is no third edition.”

“There is no…,” the speaker, n lanky awkaward looking youth in the robe of a mage, took a sharp intake of breath. “Of course, there is a third edition of Mancini! De Lancy refers to it in his beast catalogue, as does Clermont in his history.”

“I know nothing of that,” said the shopkeeper, “I assure you I have made the most thorough of inquiries. The second edition is the very latest.”

The mage uttered a sigh of exasperation. “It is not, I tell you. The third edition of Mancini has a map of all the monster lairs in Redania; De Lancy praises it at great length. Damn it….” The mage waved his hands in the air in apparent frustration. “If you haven’t got what I asked for, then give me my money back.”

The shopkeeper smiled. “But my good sir, I have already spent your deposit acquiring this volume. I haven’t the money back to give you. Come, take the volume which you have paid for, and let us part amicably.”

“Part amicably? Why you scoundrel, I ought to…”

“Need I remind you,” the shopkeeper said, his tone turning instantly from obsequious to cold, “of the penalties meted out by our great lord, Radovid to Stern, to mages who do not behave as they ought? I believe we’ve had a demonstration in the town square not a week ago.”

The mage bit his lip. Thyssen thought back to the event the shopkeeper was describing, a giant pyre in the middle of town that caused him some delay as he made his way home that evening. He had overheard that a mage was being burned, presumably for some crime, but had not spent any time learning more about it.

“I would think carefully what you say, my good sir.” The shopkeeper’s tone now dripped with sarcasm. “I could report you to the city guard if you dare make any threats against me. So, I tell you again: take the volume for which you have paid and let us part amicably.”

The mage looked coldly at the shopkeeper, but said nothing. Without replying, he pushed the volume off the counter onto the floor, and left, slamming the door. This outcome seemed to serve the shopkeeper just as well: looking perfectly pleased, he picked up the discarded book, and, shelving it, looked solicitously towards Thyssen.

Reader, there are times in life in which the most insignificant decisions can, in retrospect, turn out to have been the most consequential. A wrong turn may cause a man to bump into the woman who will become his wife. A chemical left bubbling in a cauldron by mistake behaves in a surprising way, and the resulting inquiries spark a scientific revolution. Thyssen had made just such a decision when he put down the history book in his hands, and quickly made his way of the store, and catching up with the mage.

“You know,” he said conversationally, as he matched the mage’s pace-- which, in truth, was not easy, as the latter had rather long legs and was taking great big strides in his anger -- “that map in the third edition of Mancini is rather useless. Mancini had compiled it based on second-hand accounts. Peasant’s tales.”

The mage glanced at him with interest. “And who might you be?”

Thyssen took an over-elaborate bow. “Thyssen, lately of Oxenfurt, previously of Kaer Morhen. Now I’ve never attempted to verify Mancini’s maps for myself, but I’ve talked with people who had. They were invariably disappointed.”

This was, in fact, completely true, for if there was one thing that Thyssen knew as well as any other witcher, it was the sort of knowledge that could be obtained at Kaer Morhen through conversation.

The mage stopped short. “You’re a witcher.”

“Indeed I am. Now if you wish to tell me what you needed that map for, I may be able to point you in the right direction.”

The mage rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Why don’t I buy you a beer,” he said finally and beckoned Thyssen to follow him.

“A dragon egg,” Thyssen said in disbelief.

Natan nodded. “I have six weeks. I’ve already one and a half on research with little to show for it.” He shook his head. “Here we are, supposedly in one of the great centres of learning in the world; and yet, procuring books with reliable information is not easy. All the sources I’ve consulted flatly contradict each other.”

As it turned out, neither of them was drinking a beer. Thyssen ordered some kind of bluish concoction with a minty smell, while Natan ordered a bright tea that smelled of spices. I make a note of this, reader, as this is a feature of the male psyche that persists to the present day; whenever a group of men go out, the invitation is invariably to have a beer in each other’s company, regardless of the drinks consumed. Centuries have passed and still, no man will invite another to have a herbal tea together.

“A dragon egg,” Thyssen repeated.

“Yes.”

“Is this sort of thing normal in your school?”

“Not really.”

“I’ve never heard of a mage looking for dragon eggs. It seems downright sadistic.”

“They have no practical use, at least as far as I know.” Natan said. “I believe I’m the first to be asked to procure one.”

Natan sipped his tea in silence for a few moments.

“The worst thing,” he said, looking out the window -- the two of them were seated together at the corner of a tavern close to the shore -- “is that I think they want me to steal it.”

“Steal it!?”

Natan nodded. “Be creative, they told me when I graduated. I swear I saw a wink in the eye of one of the examiners.”

“You could get in some serious trouble.”

“There are, in fact, several collectors in Novigrad with fossilized dragon eggs. I’ve made inquiries. But have you seen what’s happening lately?”

Thyssen looked at him blankly.

“The pyres in the middle of the city square. These are not good times to be a mage. If I’m even suspected…” Natan pursed his lips. “I do not plan to throw my life away.”

For the second time that day, Thyssen reflected how little he knew about Oxenfurt. He had been there for some months now but between his booming ghost business and the vain efforts he had put into courting the fairer sex, he had done little mingling with the local residents. He had always heard some vague patter about the mages being up to no good but paid little attention to it, thinking it nothing more than jealosy towards those whom nature had blessed with talent.

“There’s an ominous feeling in the air,” Natan continued. “It is hard to describe. I can feel it even though I don’t go out very much. You’ve heard how that shopkeeper talked to me. Even five years ago that would have been unthinkable. ”

They sat in an uncomfortable silence.

“You know,” Thyssen said slowly, “stealing a dragon egg may not be all that difficult.”

Natan looked at him askance.

“Do you know how to teleport?”

“Of course. Who do you take me for?”

“In principle, then, the task should be simple. Go somewhere where there’s a dragon. Wait for the dragon to fly away to hunt and teleport up to its nest. Take an egg, and teleport out. Unfortunately….”

“Wait a second,” Natan interjected. “How exactly would I find a ploughing dragon?”

“There are twelve mountain peaks within the Northern Kingdoms where lairs are known to reside. I can draw you a diagram. They are all quite far apart, but you could teleport there. No need to search very much for the dragon -- just stand around under some cover until you see a dragon flying about. They’re difficult to miss and they do have to venture out to hunt at least every few days. “

Natan looked at him carefully.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” he said, “but I am about to risk my life here. I can’t help noticing you are...on the young side, shall we say. Do you really know what you are doing?”

Thyssen was about to take offense when he paused. In the months he spent in the city, he had formed no strong connections here. Perhaps that was due to his own somewhat awkward age -- most boys born the same year as him were either educated by private tutors if they were nobles or working the fields if they were peasants. But perhaps part of it was because he was a witcher, and as such seemed to inspire either revulsion or admiration. The man in front of him seemed to face the same. Thyssen found himself wanting very much to help him.

All-in-all, it was a reasonable question.

“I do know what I’m doing,” he said slowly, “but my knowledge is, shall we say, theoretical.”

“Hmmph? What in the blazes does that mean?”

“It is based on books and the conversation of other witchers. It would not surprise you to learn that I’ve never seen a dragon.”

“I’ll put it to you this way,” Thyssen continued. “Do you know the Duke of Bann Glean? The tavern?”

“Yeah,” Natan said, “the one with the big red banner.”

“That banner advertises my services, for which you’ll have to pay top coin. Now put yourself in my place: imagine yourself a witcher. Would you rather live in comfortable rooms in Oxenfurt,and service the whims of the nobility -- or would you rather sleep in bogs and fields as you hunt kikimoras and rotfiends?”

It was, of course, a half-truth; Thyssen could not fight kikimoras or rotfiends if he wanted to; but he was not about to reveal the secret of his success, and the half-truth sufficed perfectly for the moment.

“I take your point,” Natan said. “So, then, you do not hunt any dangerous monsters? If you make top coin then it is a very comfortable niche you’ve found.”

“It is,” Thyssen agreed. “Much better, frankly, than any other witcher I know, who are, without exception, on the poorer side. But I did spend years at Kaer Morhen. As far as monsters go, I’ve read every book there is, and then some. I’ve heard witchers talk endlessly, so I know which books are reliable and which aren’t.”

Natan looked at him carefully. “All right,” he said, after a pause. “Let’s say I trust you. So it’s as easy as teleporting in and grabbing an egg?”

“Almost.”

“Almost?”

“Yes.”

“How so?”

“You see, the dragon will find you and kill you,” Thyssen helpfully explained.

“That is a pretty big almost.”

“It is.”

“What if I teleport far away?”

“The dragon will fly all over the continent looking for you. Dragons can keep vendetta’s that last centuries. De Persi’s Collected Remarks on the Southern Draconids tells the story of a dragon…”

“So is the whole idea useless?”

“Not quite.”

“Oh?”

“The thing is,” Thyssen said, “you’ve got to time things right. Most of the time, the dragons in a clutch will kill each other upon birth. That’s why dragons have so few children. You want to steal an egg just before they hatch. The mother will probably not look for you then.”

“Probably?”

“Yes.”

“ Probably?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t find myself entirely reassured.”

“Nor should you be,” said Thyssen. “Let me put it this way. How many people have tried to steal an egg from a dragon?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea.”

“Neither do I. But would zero be a plausible answer?” “It would.”

“Some amount of guesswork is inevitable, then. But imagine it. Suppose you are a dragon.”

“All right,” Natan said. “I’m supposing.”

“You fly away one day and bring back a nice sheep to feast on. Meanwhile, your clutch has hatched, and they are all either dead, or perhaps one survives. Are you going to examine the broken egg shells and consider just how many eggs those shells are consistent with?”

“I suppose not,” Natan said. “But then I am a dragon. Who knows what I would do?”

“Who knows indeed.”

“All right,” Natan said. “It sounds like a better plan that any I’ve come up with. But the timing is tricky. I’ve got to find the dragon just as the clutch is about to hatch. Besides, the dragon has to be away during the hatching itself, which is quite a coincidence.”

“It’s the right season for this,” Thyssen said. “All sources are unanimous: the eggs hatch in late spring. Besides, as I said there are over a dozen sites where you should be able to find dragons, if you can teleport all over the nothern kingdoms. You have decent odds of getting lucky.”

“Hmmm,” said Natan. “I’m not terribly convinced. But that might be as good of a plan as I’m likely to find. But there’s a slight problem you’ve overlooked.”

“And what is that?”

“The teleport. Fourteen sites...an experienced mage, someone a tad below a hundred years old, could pull that off. My mana reserves are not nearly high enough to teleport that many times in a span of weeks.”

“Oh,” said Thyssen. “But is there…”

“Of course, I could use mana stones,” Natan went on, ignoring the interruption. “But I’ll need at least five. And at 400 orens per stone, I’m nowhere close to being able to afford them. Even if someone will give me a bulk discount -- and even if I can get a part of the purchase on credit…”

“As it happens,” Thyssen said, making sure his voice cut across Natan’s monologue, “I know of a good opportunity to make a large amount of money fairly quickly.”

“And the drapes?” The contessa gestured towards her windows. “I’ve been having second thoughts about them. Are they too pink, perhaps?”

The count’s shadow fluttered unsteadily in the candelight. Looking at it felt a bit like having the man back in her presence: the aristocratic nose, the whiskers of hair on the otherwise bald head, his way of slightly stooping forward as he considered. Unfortunately, the shadow kept moving. The witcher and his assistant explained to her that communicating with ghosts was tricky business. She was not able to make out the finer features of his face, which she would have liked very much.

“I believe he likes them,” the witcher said. “I’m not sure if I’m getting it correctly, but I think he suggests it is more neutral than pink.”

The contessa clasped her hands in delight. “Exactly so! It is a very soft hue. Exactly what I thought you might say, Frasie.”

She pointed towards the onyx table in the middle of the room. “And what of this? Is it too ostentatious?”

The witcher paused as if deep in thought. “Not at all,” he said. “I believe your husband says it has a mid-century feel to it.”

A mid-century feel? Indeed, as she looked at it now, she did detect some similarities to the royal tables in the court of Vizima some decades ago. It was a shame that Frasie’s words were filtered through the witcher. It had been explained to her that Frasie’s emotions and thoughts would be felt by the witcher who would have to turn them into words on his own -- for she was sure that, if Frasie was here, he would explain exactly what he meant. Did he have the Viziman court aesthetic in mind, or something else?

No matter; this was something to think about later. For now, she needed to use this opportunity to go through the house room by room.

And so it went. For an hour they went through the walls of his castle; and for an hour, Thyssen repeated the responses that Natan projected as whispers into his mind. On his own, he would have been utterly helpless, not knowing what to say. Fortunately, Natan was able to help.

It was common for the city’s nobility to mingle with mages at some of their grand events. Even though Natan had never liked to attend these events, h was often forced to, along with some of the other older students at the academy. Invariably, the events were boring, spent by the nobles gossiping about people he had never heard of. Occasionally, he would be asked a question about magic, always a very naive one, the sort of question one could find the answer to in innumerable books. But it was at these events that he developed some familiarity with the way the nobility spoke.

“Besides,” he explained to Thyssen, “if she tries to test us somehow, I should be able to detect it. I’m not strong enough to read minds, unlike some of the older mages; but if I expend a good amount of mana, I should at the very least be able to detect when she’s not being entirely fortright.”

Once or twice, he thought he did detect a bit of trickery on the part of the contessa, an opinion asked for without the uncertainty that usually accompanies a question. On those times, he demurred, having Thyssen reply that the count had strong opinions on the object in question, very strong indeed, and those strong opinions interefered with the transmission of thoughts.

“Strong positive or strong negative opinions?” The contessa glared at him.

“Impossible to say, your ladyship,” Thyssen answered. “I apologize but this is all an art rather than an exact science.”

The first time she answered this way, she looked a little skeptical; but, by the third such answer, she seemed entirely satisfied. It seems that, even if they did not have the right answers, at least they wereat least able to pin-point the objects on which the count could be expected to have definite opinions, which was good enough to smolder the spark of doubt that remained within her.

“There is nothing so easy,” explained Thyssen to him earlier, “as fooling someone who wants to be fooled.”

“He likes the tobacco feel of the leather,” Thyssen said. “He thinks it has character.”

It was as she expected: Frasie approved of most of her choices, with only a few small exceptions. She would fix the errors and would throw the best ball that had been thrown in Novigrad this season. She would do it in his honor, for he deserved nothing less.

She gave the witcher his payment and dismissed him. He had done well. She had always suspected that Frasie was not gone; that he was looking over her in some way, that he cared deeply about what she was doing. She was, after all, continuing his legacy, his enduring conviction that beauty in one form will produce beauty in another; that a beautiful ball will inspire love, kindedness, and everything else that was good in mankind.

Now she knew : he was not gone, he was right there besides her; and saying this was not hope, was not religion, it was fact. That night she slept better than she had in years.

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zoltanberrigomo · 4 years

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The Incompetent Witcher, Chapter 6

In the books he used to pass the time at Kaer Morhan, Thyssen often read that, in a time of danger, the mind enters a state of hyper-concentration. Time begins to pass at a slower rate, everything unimportant fades from view, and ideas flit about the head like tiny bolts of lightning.

As his opponent drew his sword, Thyssen reflected that nothing of the kind was happening. If anything, the opposite was the case: he kept on thinking that he needed a really clever trick to escape the mess he found himself in, leading him to wonder why no good ideas were popping into his head and whether he might not be as clever as he sometimes hoped he was; all of which was, at best, distracting from his predicament.

His opponent let out a cry and charged. The peasant’s friends had meanwhile put on a black cloak on him, and though at first Thyssen thought the man looked ridiculous, he looked a bit like a charging Nilfgaardian now. It had to be admitted that his opponent did look rather threatening.

Thyssen dodged. He was not a bad swordsman; while he was no match for any witcher or soldier, the lessons he took at Kaer Morhan at least taught him the proper way to hold a sword. The problem was that his opponent was several times his size and proper footing cannot not save anyone from a disparity of that magnitude.

Still, he dodged and rolled successfully. Had Vesemir been there to witness this, I dare say he would complain that his former charge had managed to undercut his own, already rather low, expectations; but, be that as it may be, Thyssen’s rolls proved good enough to escape the jabs of his opponent.

“The witcher’s toying with him!” someone shouted.

It was, to put it mildly, a charitable interpretation, though Thyssen was glad to hear it voiced. But it seemed to irritate his opponent all the more, who charged at him with renewed energy, nearly knocking over a burning torch, which had been mounted on a half-full trough which, in a less festive time, was used for watering pigs.

As his opponent turned around, Thyssen looked at his surroundings more closely. A plan was beginning to form in his mind.

He began to parry as well as dodge, seeking to maneuver his opponent to where he wanted him. Careful not to cross swords directly -- the pure strength of his opponent would likely sweep him off the field - his dodges began to be more planned. A minute later, he was standing with his opponent besides the same torch that was nearly knocked over.

There were, in fact, quite a few of these torches all around, mounted on barn walls, or freestanding on wooden bases, for it had grown dark and the peasants seemed unbothered by the obvious fire hazard. It occurred to Thyssen that while he had not the strength to conjure up a flame at a distance -- all he could manage, the last time Vesemir had tested him was a burning match -- manipulating an existing flame, especially when he was right beside it, was within the range of his powers.

And so, at the right moment, he straightened up, loudly proclaimed, “Enough fun! Time to put an end to it,” and put all his energy into an Igni to pull the fire from the torch onto his opponent’s cloak.

It would not have worked if they were not standing right beneath the torch; but, as it was, the black cloak quickly began burning. Screaming, the peasant began to frantically unclasp it, and would have likely done so quite successfully had Thyssen not -- for safety’s sake, he would tell others later -- taken the opportunity to knock his opponent over into the pig trough, extinguishing the fire in the pail of water.

Reader, I will spare you a detailed account of all that transpired thereafter. I will say only that there was much concern on the part of the villagers, concern which manifested itself in the form of screaming and hysterics, particularly among the women-folk. The peasant who had challenged Thyssen was not hurt, though his cloak had to be discarded. Thyssen had received no further challenges from the men of the village that night.

But if he had thought that the victory would lead the women of the village to swoon over him, nothing could be further from the truth. The power to call forth fire might sound impressive in theory; but, when presented with it plainly before their faces, our Northern peasants will recoil in horror, pray to whichever god they worship, and look upon the wielder of this power with unease which can easily mature into hatred. And for good reason; for is there not something unnatural, something of the devil about it?

In short, after being shunned by the very people he had hoped to impress, Thyssen rode his horse back to Oxenfurt, where he spent the remainder of the evening alone in his chambers. He resolved that, henceforth, he would limit his forays to the countryside as much as possible.

“I often see his shadow on the walls,” the contessa said gesturing around the entrance hall. Thyssen shrunk his shoulders as best he could, seeking to take up as little space as possible. He felt more than a little intimidated to be here, in a castle whose towers could be seen for miles around, standing beside its owner.

“How long does he linger?”

“Moments. He only wishes to let me know he is here. Nothing more”

She seemed remarkably collected, at least compared to Thyssen’s regular clientele, who tended to recount their problems in tones bordering on hysteria. In any case, her problem seemed an especially easy one. He would make an act of banishing the ghost and paint the walls a different color, one less given to reflecting shadows.

He prolonged the conversation for a while, asking perfunctory questions that an actual witcher might ask. I will not bore you with them, dear reader,; rather, let us skip ahead a half-hour when Thyssen had judged it safe enough to get down to business.

“It would be my honor, your ladyship, to banish the ghost …”

“Goodness,” the contessa cut him off before erupting into a laugh. “You have got the wrong idea entirely. The last thing I want to do is banish poor Frasie!”

That was how she had referred to her late husband, the Duke of Fraserburgh.

Thyssen was confused. “Then may I ask what services your ladyship requires?”

“Why, I sorely need to talk to him. You know I’m hosting the spring cotillion in a month?”

Thyssen did not know what a cotillion was but he nodded nonetheless.

“Oh, Frasie used to throw the most marvelous balls! He spent the better part of each year planning the parties he would throw. The decorations were always beautiful, the food splendid, the clothes he suggested were exquisite. Everything was perfectly gay!

“Ever since he departed,” the contessa said mournfully, “my parties have lacked a certain joie de vivre.”

Thyssen must have looked confused for the contessa took him by the hand and led him to one of the doors of the entrance hall.

“Look here,” she said, pointing to a set of pink ribbons which decorated the entrance of the door. “What do you think of those?”

“They are very pretty madam,” Thyssen said. That was apparently the wrong response, for the contessa’s face contorted and she stomped her foot on the ground in anger.

“No, no, no,” she cried, “for the pink clashes with the orange-yellow glow refracting from the chandeliers.” She directed Thyssen’s attention to colored collections of crystals hanging from the ceiling.

“Indeed, I see now that you are right, your ladyship,” Thyssen said cautiously after a pause.

“I only noticed it this morning,” the contessa went on, clearly incensed. “Frasie would have spotted it right away. But I’ve had these ribbons hanging here for over a week.”

She sighed. “Can you imagine what would have happened at the cotillion?” She shook her head in a burst of emotion. “Can you imagine what people would have said?”

“If I might ask, your ladyship,” Thyssen said, seeking to steer the conversation to safer ground, “what is that you’d like me to do?”

“I want to walk through the chambers of the castle with Frasie,” the contessa said, “room by room. And I want to hear what he thinks of my decorations. Is this something you can arrange?”

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zoltanberrigomo · 7 years

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Statistical Significance

Item #: SCP-3285

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: Foundation agents have been placed in positions of power within the governments of Israel, Iran, North Korea, Japan, India, and Pakistan. At the discretion of the O5 council, a sequence of events culminating in a nuclear exchange between Israel/Iran, North Korea/Japan, or India/Pakistan can be put into motion at approximately a week's notice. Description: SCP-3285 is the collective designation given to patterns of events which bring the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation before de-escalation. The archetypal events grouped under this designation are:

SCP-3285-001: On Sep 26, 1983, Soviet early warnings satellites recorded five Minutemen intercontinental ballistic missiles launched from an American military base. The event occurred in the aftermath of Ronald Reagan's "evil empire" speech. Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, shift supervisor at the Soviet command center, chose to report to his superiors that the incoming data was erroneous. The available evidence did not support this unequivocal judgement and Lt. Col. Petrov later described his choice as a "gut decision." Although ultimately correct, Lt. Col. Petrov was reprimanded, ostensibly for improperly documenting the event in the logs, and relieved of duty. It is notable that Lt. Col. Petrov was the on-duty staff officer as a result of covering for a colleague who was ill.

SCP-3285-002: In Oct. 1963, in the midst of the Cuban missile crisis, the captain of a Soviet submarine stationed off the coast of Cuba mistook depth charges for an assault and gave the order to launch a nuclear torpedo at an American ship. Regulations required unanimity among the top three officers; while the first officer concurred with the captain, the second officer, Commander Vasili Arkhipov, refused to agree to the launch.

SCP-3285-003: On November 9, 1973, a computer error at NORAD resulted in a faulty notification of a Soviet nuclear attack. Initial estimates placed the number of incoming Soviet missiles at approximately 250, which was almost immediately revised to over 2,200. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was advised the decision to retaliate must be made within minutes. However, just as this deadline was passing additional information became available which contradicted the initial reports.

Additional events considered part of SCP-3285 are:

The entirety of the Cuban missile crisis.

The assassination of John F. Kennedy (which lead to a nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union in the majority of war games simulated by the Foundation).

The Norwegian rocket incident of 1995 (when Russian radars recorded an unexpected missile launch, consistent with an attack from a nuclear-armed submarine, projected to hit Moscow in under than 5 minutes).

The Thule false alarm of 1960 (when NORAD reported a 99.9% likelihood of a Soviet nuclear strike landing within minutes).

Additional █ classified instances believed to be part of SCP-3285 are listed in document SCP-3285-LJKW.

While the positive outcome associated with each of these events can be explained by reference to the laws of chance, the chance of humanity surviving all the events comprising SCP-3285 is exceedingly small. Precise assignment of probabilities is problematic, but the key observation is that probabilities of independent events multiply. As a result, attempts to assign probabilities to positive outcomes of events in SCP-3285 typically lead to extremely low estimates for the probability of all of them occurring together.

Additional evidence for the anomalous origin of the phenomenon lies in the apparent coincidences or unusual events that prevented many of the events comprising SCP-3285 from escalating into full-blown nuclear war. Lt. Col. Petrov was on-duty covering for a sick colleague; a different staff officer might have reported to the Kremlin that a nuclear attack was underway. The Thule false alarm occurred during Soviet Premier Khruschev's widely publicized visit to the United States, leading NORAD operators to consider a Soviet attack at the time unlikely. Testimony was not extracted from Lee Harvey Oswald due to his murder by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner without explicit Soviet connections.

The most plausible explanation derives from the anthropic principle. A nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union would have escalated to a "nuclear winter" and the likely extinction of humanity. In all the universes where these events happened, humanity and the Foundation do not exist. Thus any human being alive at the end of the cold war will inhabit a universe where a nuclear exchange between the United States and Soviet Union was averted.

Stronger versions of the anthropic principle propose to make predictions based on what a "typical living observer" is likely to experience. This framework appears to match SCP-3285: given that the cold war has a propensity to repeatedly escalate into nuclear confrontation, the typical living observer will inhabit a universe which comes to brink of nuclear war before ultimately retreating [1].

An implication is that humanity is unlikely to survive confrontations between nuclear powers, as the anthropic principle cannot ensure humanity's safety in the future. As nuclear weapons grow progressively easier to construct due to technological progress, the danger from SCP-3285 is projected to grow exponentially. In particular, it appears highly unlikely that humanity will survive a future in which small states and private/subnational actors are capable of building substantial nuclear arsenals.

Possibilities for containment: On 5/6/2007, the Historical Dynamics Division proposed a possible means of containment. Project Controlled Burn is premised on the observation that excesses of violence often drive periods of peace in human history. For example, broad revulsion at the atrocities of Nazi Germany is considered to be responsible for the relative peacefulness of the post-WW-II period in Europe.

It is therefore proposed that a limited nuclear exchange, comprising between 20-40 atomic explosions, would result in a widespread abhorrence of nuclear weapons with a strong preventative effect. The probability that an exchange of that size would lead to the extinction of humanity is believed to be exceedingly small, although a large number of civilian casualties are to be expected.

The Historical Dynamics division has argued that a controlled nuclear war between North Korea and Japan is the most attractive possibility for containment of SCP-3285. Since nuclear weapons were used in World War II on Japanese soil, it is conjectured that the destruction of several Japanese cities would evoke a particularly strong wave of worldwide sympathy. It is therefore recommended that, if the Foundation chooses to provoke a nuclear exchange, either Hiroshima or Nagasaki (or both) be included within the list of targets to emphasize historical resonance.

The Ethics Committee approved Project Controlled Burn on 2/8/2013. On 1/7/2015, the O5 council voted 10-3 to forego implementation, with the proviso that the vote be revisited every five years. On 9/20/2017, following increased tensions between US and North Korea with threats of nuclear attack on both sides, the O5 council met to discuss the matter again. The possibility that an uncontrolled nuclear exchange in which one side emerged as the clear victor might in fact accelerate nuclear proliferation was discussed. By a vote of 8-5, the previous decision was affirmed. The next vote is scheduled for 1/7/2020.

[1] There are a number of mathematical ways to formalize this statement. The simplest is to model relations between cold war powers as a one-dimensional random walk which has a tendency to move towards an absorptive state corresponding to nuclear war. Conditional on lack of absorption, Eq. (3.4) of E.A. Van Doorn, ``Quasi-stationary distributions and convergence to quasi-stationarity of birth-death processes,'' Annals of Applied Probability, pp. 683-700, 1991 provides a concentration result for such a random walk around the absorptive state.

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zoltanberrigomo · 7 years

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The Trashiest World in the Multiverse

I’ve just placed SCP-3159 on the wiki.

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zoltanberrigomo · 7 years

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A new SCP

I’ve just posted SCP-3192, entitled When The Bell Tolls, to the SCP wiki.

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zoltanberrigomo · 7 years

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How the Foundation Came to Operate a Phone Sex Hotline

The SCP Wiki is a collaborative fiction project about a Foundation that catalogs and contains various anomalous phenomena. My contribution: SCP-3171.

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zoltanberrigomo · 7 years

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The Incompetent Witcher

The School of the Wolf's newest graduate is its worst ever. Can he make his way in the world?

Fanfiction, in progress.

Chapter 1.

Chapter 2.

Chapter 3.

Chapter 4.

Chapter 5.

Chapter 6.

Chapter 7.

#Witcher #the witcher #witcher 3 #fanfic #fanfiction #witcher fanfiction

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zoltanberrigomo · 7 years

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The Incompetent Witcher, Chapter 5

With trial and error comes expertise. Thyssen soon understood that the ghost sightings, which at first glance seemed as much a feature of the city as its landscape, had four principal causes. The first was, of course, the need to explain away the unintended outcomes of erotic encounters. The boys from the academy, most of them naturally mischievous; the rowdy soldiers who always seemed to be passing through the town; the streets full of maids and servants, many quite lovely, usually wearing tatters which left little to the imagination -- all of this had exactly the outcome one would expect.

But there were also more mundane causes. One Thyssen had already encountered on his way to Oxenfurt -- loose paneling. A series of wooden planks, not perfectly aligned, will produce a wide-berthed sound in a strong gale, a noise that will change as fast as the wind. You may laugh at this, reader, but I assure you there was no shortage of men who managed to read otherworldly warnings into these sounds.

It was not enough, in such cases, to make some noise and emerge having declared victory, for the problem would only reappear. The loose board had to be found and nailed shut; better yet, it could be broken entirely, perhaps as an unavoidable consequence of the “battle” with the ghosts, forcing the client to fix it at his own expense.

The third cause, which took Thyssen quite a bit of effort to unearth, was a species of magical mold. This mold sparkled and shimmered beautifully in the light of a full moon, and only in the light of a full moon. This damnable fungus caused a minor smirch on Thyssen’s reputation, as several places that he had declared free of ghosts teemed with reported sightings later, the glowing moonlight transformed into Gods-know-what kind of monsters. After many failed experiments, Thyssen brought some samples to a few of the washerwomen who made their living on the outskirts of the city, and a cleaning solution which handled it satisfactorily was found.

But the last cause, if it can even be called that, was the most difficult one of all. All over the city, men cheated, stole, and betrayed each other; many a mage was burned at the stake; nonhumans were hanged on the words of their neighbors, the same neighbors who would later appropriate the posessions of the deceased. Historians would later draw an arbitrary line in their chronologies and declare, here began the Age of Contempt . Yet even the most evil of men is not bereft of a conscience. It may be hidden, suppressed, out of sight, but it is there, lying in wait to take some tangible form, perhaps that of a ghost come for revenge. Thyssen could nail shut a floorboard or wash away mold but what could he do to relieve a guilty conscience?

“She looks at us when we sleep,’’ the townswoman said. Her name was Eliza and her husband, a prosperous and portly fur merchant named Petrus, sat beside her; their voices, though tightly controlled, seemed to be on the verge of an explosion. A few servants were standing mutely at the entrances.

“Looks at you?”

“I see her pale white form when I wake up. It dissolves into mist just as I open my eyes.”

“Sometimes I hear her footsteps in the garden,” Petrus added. “She used to love walking there when she lived. I hear footsteps but the garden is empty whenever I open the door.”

“And then there are my cups,” Eliza continued. “I’ll be carrying a tray when she’ll knock it out of my hands. I can feel her touch on me, the coldness of her hands. She hated my cups. Too floral, she always said.”

They were speaking of Eliza’s sister and Petrus’ former wife, for the two persons were one and the same. The three of them had lived together for a decade before Eliza’s sister perished in the Catriona plague, and Eliza married her former brother-in-law a year later.

Thyssen thought it over. He had already inspected the house -- no mold, no loose flooring. He had first supposed the footsteps could be the work of neighboring kids; but the garden was too steeply walled. His medallion did not give off even a hint of vibration as he walked from room to room.

He could, of course, make some noise and declare the ghost banished. No doubt all would be well for a time; but the guilty consciences of the people in front of them would give rise to another sighting soon enough and then he would have a very unhappy client on his hands.

He might declare himself powerless. The merchant had offered him a hundred orens to take care of the problem, and though he would be sorry to lose them, his long-term reputation was more important.

His thoughts turned to a group of monks he saw walking through the town gate the prior afternoon. A new order of the Church of the Eternal Fire whose name he could not recall. The monks were clothed in only their loincloths, their emaciated bodies cut to and fro by long gashes, self administered with the whips they carried about them. Some of the wounds were still bloody. The procession made for quite a sight, evincing as much wonder as disgust as the monks proudly paraded their wounds.

And yet what Thyssen remembered the most were the beatific smiles of the men in the procession. Even as the townspeople jeered and laughed, and as some threw rotten food at the procession, the monks never wavered, and the expressions of utter, complete, rapturous happiness never disappeared from their faces.

Making up his mind, he made a gesture as if to stretch. Channeling his energy as best he could, Thyssen poured all of his efforts into his aard.

Across a hall, an empty coat stand which had been leaning precariously toppled over with a sharp clang.

“It’s her!” Eliza and her husband rose to their feet in a panic. “It must be.”

“Leave the house,” Thyssen said, trying to make his voice calm yet laden with a detectable undertone of panic. The couple did not need to be told twice. “Take the servants with you,” he added as an afterthought, but they were already out the door with the servants on their heels.

Within moments, he was alone. He stood in silence for several moments, just in case someone was still inside the house; but he heard nothing, only the faint creaking of wood in the autumn wind. Walking through the rooms, careful to check that he could not be seen through any of the windows, he made a effort to to make it seem as if a fight had taken place here: cups strewn on the floor, books tossed everywhere, curtains ripped apart. As was his habit by now, he inflicted a few minor injuries on himself, small bruises and cuts that made him look suitably frazzled.

And then he sat still. After an hour, he ventured outside, where a circle of onlookers had gathered.

“Did you defeat it?”

“Are we safe?”

He motioned the couple to follow him inside the house, away from the prying ears of the crowd.

“I’m afraid not,” he replied.

He could see their faces fall. Impatiently, they led him to one of the guest rooms deep inside the house where they could talk privately.

“We fought for a good while,” Thyssen said, “but she was simply too strong. Too powerful.” He shook his head. “Never have I met a ghost this well-formed, not in my..." he paused "...many years of witchering. ”

“Perhaps we ought to employ a more powerful witcher,” Petrus said sharply. “Someone who has been witchering, as you say, for a little while longer."

“If you wish,” Thyssen answered calmly. "If any other man drives away the ghost, I won't take for a single oren from you, I assure you."

He let the silence linger for a while. "You see,” he finally continued, “we had a conversation." He stopped for effect. They were both looking at him with wide eyes and open mouths. Just as he saw they were about to bombard him with questions, he went on.

“We sparred until our energies drained, until it was clear that neither of us could defeat the other. It was only then that she looked me up-and down and began to speak.”

He turned to the merchant. "She..the ghost that is...it said that you betrayed her. That you never loved her, not truly."

“Ridiculous!” Petrus retorted angrily. “Twelve years we were together.”

"She said," Thyssen continued, "that you were eyeing her sister the whole time."

"Lies," the merchant said, but Thyssen noticed that his outrage seemed to diminish somewhat.

"She accuses both of you of sneaking behind her back for years."

The couple shared an anxious glance before Eliza spoke. “It is not true, master witcher, I assure you. If anything, it was the grief that brought us together. When she had passed away...”

She left her sentence hang in the air.

“I argued with her on your behalf,” Thyssen said. “Assured her of your good will. But she would not believe me. "

Eliza put her hands over her face and looked as if she were about to start sobbing. Wary of overdoing it, Thyssen jumped to the bombshell he had prepared.

"But, in the end, we struck an agreement."

That provoked a reaction; for a moment, the couple seemed speechless.

"I told her that your love was genuine and free of ill will. I apologize for the presumption, kind ser," Thyssen added, for indeed it was unclear from what source he would have obtained such a conviction. "But I have much experience with ghosts, and rest assured, it was the right course to take."

"In the end," Thyssen said, "she set her conditions. You are to separate for a year." He turned to the merchant. "You shall remain here in Novigrad, while you, madam, shall spend the year alone at one of your country estates. The two of you must have no contact whatsoever during that time. If you find yourself still in love at the end of the year, your sister will be able to pass into the nether world in peace."

"A year?" said the merchant unhappily, twirling his mustache. But his wife had the opposite reaction.

"But that is wonderful," she exclaimed, putting her hands together. "A year is nothing, nothing at all!"

"Do you think so, my dear?" Petrus said skeptically.

“There is more, I’m sorry to say,” Thyssen continued. “You must both take a vow of silence for the last two weeks of that year. You may communicate only with gestures during that time.”

“Impossible,” Petrus declared, and even Eliza looked taken aback. The merchant a quick mental calculation. “A year takeaway two weeks puts us during the time of the fall harvest, the most lucrative time of my trade.”

“I’m afraid,” Thyssen said in the most apologetic tone he could muster, “the ghost’s terms were not negotiable.”

“Very well,” Eliza said with a gleam of determination as her husband let loose a string of curses. “We’ll do it, darling, won’t we?”

There followed a lengthy and somewhat agonizing discussion. Thyssen had remained silent at first, then coughed gently and moved out of earshot to an adjoining room. He left several hours later, a hundred orens richer, with the household’s servants already starting to pack Eliza’s effects for a lengthy sojourn in the country.

He poured himself a drink when he had arrived home that evening, a strong Mahakan ale that lulled him into a pleasant state of contentment. Did he just save or destroy a marriage? Should he have said six months instead of a year? How much suffering should people be expected undergo for love? Eventually, he managed to convince himself that nothing easily obtained feels truly valuable; that the couple’s inner demons can only be banished through hardship; and that if their love cannot survive a year’s separation, it was worth little to begin with and he would have done them both a favor. Comforted by these arguments, he finally fell into a light asleep, and on waking up the next morning, groggy and with a minor hangover, he resolved that doubting his decision would produce no good, and he would not dwell on the matter again.

Reader, I suspect only your politeness restrains you from accusing me of lamentably poor organization. I am not unconscious that, having launched into an account of Thyssen’s experience as a witcher, I may have neglected to clarify a number of key points. Where did Thyssen live? Did he long to return to Kaer Morhen? Did he obtain any comrades, traveling companions, or won the heart of a fair damsel? To these pressing questions I now turn.

Thyssen’s first impulse was to take rooms in the cheapest inn in town, The Red Lion, which in spite of the regal-sounding name turned out to be an overgrown hut a half-hour past the city walls. The chief thing to recommend it was that the proprietor could be bargained to a mere half-oren a week. But, on reflection, Thyssen decided that an appearance of poverty would not do. One had to spend money to make money. Instead he took rooms in an inconspicuous tavern just past the western gate at two orens a day, clean, sturdy, with a clientele largely composed farmers who came to the city to bargain away their crops.

Fortunately there was no shortage of jobs for Thyssen, and as I have already began to detail, and he soon embarked on a veritable one-man spree to rid the city of its ghostly infestation. Within a few weeks, flush with an influx of coin, he rented a few rooms at the top of the Duke of Bann Glean, a fancier establishment of the sort frequented by passing merchants. Although more expensive, the owner allowed him to unfurl a banner which, as it flopped to-and-fro in the wind, advertised his services to all who went by.

His fame grew, buoyed by a string of apparent successes. He received a fair amount of commissions for witcher’s work unrelated to ghosts; many came to him with requests to banish ghouls, drowners, barghests, and other marvelous beasts which prowled about freely during those chaotic times. Naturally he sent them all away, either naming outrageously high prices, or pleading that he had too much work as things stood. If a customer did, perchance, agree to his extravagant price, he would then demand the fee in advance; if even that failed, a bit of “research” on his part would reveal dangers in the assignment previously unrealized, leading to a massive increase in the asking price. One way or another, he managed to restrict himself to ghost-related work without seeming to arouse suspicion.

His services steadily grew more expensive. If at first he had served mainly the fishermen on the wharf and the peasants who labored on the city’s outskirts, his clients were now predominantly merchants who did business within the city. A few even came from the aristocracy. In spite of this, when he took stock of his finances at the end of each week, it was clear that he was not growing wealthy fast enough to realize his dream of a vineyard in Toussaint. For he did not abandon his dream; on the contrary, as he heard travelers passing through Oxenfurt full of nothing but superlative praise for that land, Toussaint had grown in his imagination to almost mythic proportions.

Reader, I will not disparage Oxenfurt, or any other Redanian city for that matter. The writings that have passed to us from that time make it clear that the city, although small, dirty, full of beggars, beset by cold and rainy weather, and with bandits prowling its outskirts, was nevertheless charming and beautiful. Travelers often remarked on her streets, paved with uneven bricks; her expansive and wide squares; the labyrinthine maze of red roofs that shone so brightly in the summer their glare could be seen from mountains away. And yet, for some inexplicable reason entirely mysterious to me, Thyssen remained unsatisfied with his lot.

What it was that he wanted, I very much doubt he could say himself; and yet these hopes and dreams took personification in Toussaint, in the thoughts of lazy afternoons spent drunk on grapes lounging in the sun’s glare. The problem was that a typical week for Thyssen would involve one or two jobs, with a net profit of a hundred orens or so. At this rate, he would be saving coin for a hundred years or so before he could afford that hypothetical vineyard.

All the same, the work of a witcher-charlatan was not an overly consuming one. He spent a few hours each day sifting through clients and one or two evenings each week were wholly devoted to his craft; otherwise he was free. You might therefore wonder, dear reader, how Thyssen spent his remaining hours.

The answer should be entirely obvious. Thyssen was a healthy boy on the cusp of adulthood. Naturally, he poured all of his energy into, as the men of my generation were fond of saying, “chasing skirts.” Unfortunately, he was quite hampered in this endeavor by his complete and utter lack of knowledge of what one ought to do in the presence of the opposite sex.

The stories he heard growing up at Kaer Morhen suggested that merely walking down the street in the armor of a witcher, with two swords at his back, would be sufficient to seduce any woman. One of the witchers who wintered there often -- a certain Geralt, not a terribly attractive man, face marred by scars and hair in a ponytail that made him look vaguely equine -- often told stories of his dalliances with sorceresses, all supposedly exceedingly beautiful and powerful. According to this Geralt, he barely had to do anything before these beauties threw themselves at him.

But no matter how many times Thyssen strolled down the street with the swords at his back, the only women who accosted him were fishermen’s wives looking to interest him in the catch of the day. If anything he seemed to be almost invisible: just one more young boy decked in leather armor, likely a mercenary looking for work among the soldiers which were constantly prowling the city. Occasionally, he would wander into an inn, still in his armor, and recline against a wall throwing cool glances at the drinking and gambling taking place. Here the only women who accosted him were of the sort that wanted payment for services rendered.

Perhaps, he thought, he needed to be a touch more aggressive, to approach some fair maiden strolling about the city and start a conversation. But what could he possibly say?

The books he had read in his Kaer Morhan suggested long and flowery speeches praising the woman’s beauty, which seemed like quite reasonable advice. Besides, he had often seen knights in bright plumage and gleaming armor loudly proclaiming poetry in the midst of some public declaration of love within the city’s squares.

He would approach a woman buying fruit at one of the stalls into the market; making some small talk about the fresh oranges from Nazir or some such, he would wait for an opening to launch into a sonnet (composed beforehand) on the subject of her great beauty. He spent quite a few evenings laboring on these sonnets, and he thought they flowed rather elegantly. The women looked at him as if he was a lunatic and, seeming vaguely disoriented, sought to distance themselves as fast as they could.

For a while, he thought that his poetry was insufficiently effusive, and even took some lessons from a travelling bard. Unfortunately, what Thyssen neglected to consider was that while such poetic effusions were not uncommon among the aristocracy, where the women typically possessed a courtly education and might be impressed by a rhyming couplet or an unexpected turn of phrase; but the maids who were sent out to shop at the market were not the best audience for his attempts at cleverness. I regret to report that his efforts in this direction failed to produce anything in the way tangible results.

Soon enough he realized a new approach was called for. One night, as he was having his dinner at his inn’s lobby, he overheard the conversation of a trio of merchants seated at the next table. Besides learning much about the price of cloth all over the Northern Kingdoms, he found out that, each month, on the night of the full moon, one of the villages outside Oxenfurt held a dance that lasted until dawn. Much alcohol would be served, and the merchants had indulged in some speculations about the chastity of peasant girls, or the lack thereof, which I shall not deign to repeat here.

Visions of tightly-dressed, simple but lovely peasants girls floated before Thyssen’s eyes. It would be too much, he reasoned, to attend clad in full armor, but perhaps a couple of swords at his back would not hurt…

He could hardly wait until the next full moon.

When it finally came, and when he had arrived (bedecked in leather armor) in the small hamlet where the dance was held, he found the scene much like he imagined it. Musicians were playing cheerful tunes on lutes, simple and fast music. A few couples were dancing with the wild abandon that comes from drunkenness in the open barns. There were many braziers all around, so much that the bright hue of the village was visible for miles on the road. The air smelled of damp moss, reminding him of his time at Kaer Morhen.

After tying his horse to a tree, he approached one of the makeshift stands to buy a drink.

“Notfromaround‘ere, eh?” the seller said in a mildly hostile tone as he took the coin handed to him.

“No,” Thyssen said taking the tankard and taking in the scene. He stood aimlessly, slowly sipping his drink, which was as close to pure alcohol as anything he had drunk recently. It took all of his self-control to stop himself from spitting it out.

He was pleased to see a few of the peasant girls shyly eyeing him from a distance, and one even giggled when he asked her to dance. So unlike the well-dressed city girls, who would take one look at either his armor or his clothes and seem to instantly lose interest. Here things were altogether different. Was it the two swords at his back, one of them recently-polished silver? Or was it his his carefully crafted attire, purchased from a tailor not far from the tavern where he stayed, which contrasted so sharply to the unshapely overalls worn by the peasants here? Whatever it was, he was in no mood to question it.

But it was here that he discovered another obstacle to his romantic endeavors, namely that he had nothing whatsoever to talk the peasant girls about.

“Harvestwasgoodthisyear,” the first girl he danced said to him after the music stopped and he vaguely hovered about her thinking of something to say. The people here seemed to slur the Common Speech rather than speak it, so that all of their words felt as if they lumped into one.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s what I hear.”

There was a silence.

“Lots of fruits and vegetables collected?” he offered what seemed to him to be the logical continuation of the topic, but she only looked at him a little strangely.

“Your eyes look beautiful in the moonlight,” he shifted the conversation onto safer ground.

She smiled, “Thankyaverymuch,” she said, her accent so thick that, were it not for context, he would have had no idea of what it was she had just said.

“It’s a beautiful village,” Thyssen said, looking around at the decrepit houses. “Have you lived here your whole life?”

She nodded. “Iwasbornyonder,” she said, pointing to one of the huts not far from where they were standing.

“I’m originally from Kaedwen,” Thyssen offered.

“Where?”

“A castle called Kaer Morhen. In Kaedwen.” But the girl looked at him with a confused face. After some back and forth, it turned out that she had never heard of any such place. Redania, Aedirn, and Temeria were the only nations she knew of and she was much surprised to learn the Northern Kingdoms comprised of many more countries than these. This momentous revelation did not seem to affect her much. Thyssen had excitedly began to tell her of the various lands of the North and their customs; but he could not go on for long without noticing her manifest lack of interest.

“So what do you do?” he asked after lapsing into a silence.

The question seemed to confuse her. “Ipackhaylots,” she said finally.

“Interesting work?” He realized the inanity of the question as soon as the words emerged from his lips. Fortunately, the girl was not offended as much as confused.

“Iguessso,” she said.

He was racking his brains for how to proceed when the music started again and another fellow asked the girl to dance. His former dance partner smiled apologetically and accepted, looking slightly relieved.

Things proceeded likewise with each successive partner. There was a flurry of initial interest, and his clumsy dancing did not seem to put them off; but the making of conversation afterwards proved to be rather challenging. He tried to tell the next one about his favorite books, the adventure stories he had read obsessively while at Kaer Morhen, but she only looked blankly at him. He tried asking about her favorite books but it transpired that she did not know how to read.

Not willing to fall down before a challenge, he walked around the festivities until he came across a group of villagers laughing animatedly, three boys and two girls among them. Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, he hovered around within earshot, hoping to catch a drift of the topics they found so engaging.

It was not easy, for he only managed to make out two words out of every five; but, eavesdropping awkwardly for some minutes, he made mental notes of several subjects being discussed. These included the abnormally large tomatoes found in this Fall’s crop; the insufferable people from the neighboring village in the East, who thought themselves superior because their settlement was larger and possessed a tavern; the recent infestation of abnormally large raccoons that was eating the local walnuts; the dull people from the neighboring village in the North, who were so poor they could barely afford shoes; the coming arrival of a merchant who sold mirrors, lockets, and other shiny trinkets at significant discounts; the departure of the village herbalist who had been found to have been having an affair with one of the headmen and was run out of town by a justifiably angry mob. “Ihopetheyburnheratthestake,” one of the older girls said with evident disgust. One of the boys was bragging about his success in selling mole rats, roasted slowly over a fire and marketed as beef, to travellers who spent the night in the village, much to the delight of all his listeners.

Unfortunately Thyssen did not find he had much to contribute on any of these subject.

Feeling a more direct approach was called for, he simply declared, apropos of nothing, “I’m a witcher, you know” to the next girl -- a pretty redhead with large eyes who kept shyly looking down at the floor -- after their dance was over.

That, at the very least, seemed to produce an effect. “No,” the girl said with a smile, “yourejoking.”

He raised his palm and a small flame shot of it. She yelped lightly in shock and looked at him anew, with a mixture of fear and fascination in her eyes.

His demonstration did not pass unnoticed. Soon enough, a circle of admirers surrounded him, largely female, looking at the flames that shot out of his hands. A few of them ran their fingers along his palms, rather tenderly saw, as if to convince themselves that his hands were unscathed.

Reader, the next half hour were quite likely among the most exciting of Thyssen’s life, for he had the undivided attention of a dozen fair specimens of the opposite sex. Even Thyssen was stunned at the apparent popularity of his profession. He had, perhaps, expected some revulsion, but his small stature and unassuming looks appeared to preclude that.

He first showed them his silver sword, and then began to tell them stories of the ghosts he had supposedly banished. I regret to report that, even forgetting that none of these ghosts were real, these stories were vastly exaggerated. Thyssen was in the middle of describing how he fought an entire army of banshees when he was rather rudely interrupted.

“IbetIcouldtakeyouon,” said one of the peasants, an overgrown hulk of a man. Thyssen looked at him uncertainly, unsure how to respond.

“Yeah!” someone shouted.

A few excited whistles were heard, coming mostly from boys who, only a minute ago, were looking resentfully at the attention Thyssen was receiving from the opposite sex.

“Nothingsmorefunthanagoodfight,” someone said.

“Alekseyandthewitcher!”

This was not part of the plan. His opponent was at least thrice his size. His fists were almost as big as Thyssen’s face. To make matters worse, this Aleksey was looking at Thyssen with unabashed hatred in his eyes.

“Witchers do not fight for sport…” he offered cautiously but this seemed widely ignored. The girls had dispersed the boys were arranging themselves in a circle around him and the peasant. It would be quite embarrassing to flee, especially after having gone on at some length about defeating ghosts.

On the other hand, having his face disfigured was a far more unattractive prospect. He looked for his horse and found him tied to a birch behind a barn some fifty paces away, too far to make a run for it.

Meanwhile people were flocking in his general direction, drawn by the shouts that a fight was about to take place. Thyssen stood helplessly, hoping that whatever passed for the law in this godforsaken place would intervene. Unfortunately, the village headman, easily identifiable by the crowd that had been surrounding him, only looked at the budding scene with amusement as he puffed on his pipe..

He turned his glance to his opponent who was now rubbing his arms together with a grim anticipation, grinning maliciously.

This would not be pretty.

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