You may be aware that CD Projekt's The Witcher games are based on a series of fantasy novels by the Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. What you may not know is that I liked the story of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings so much that I have been working on my own novelization of it, tentatively titled The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings: The Game: The Novel.
What follows is an excerpt from an early chapter, in which the titular Witcher, Geralt of Rivia, has an adventure in the small trading village of Flotsam. I hope you enjoy it.
—
The afternoon sun cascaded into the Flotsam town square as Geralt of Rivia blinked off his hangover. He grunted and stretched his Witcher legs and his Witcher arms, and cracked his Witcher back. He slowly scratched an itch on his Witcher chin and took in the scene before him.
The gallows at the center of the square remained untouched, preserving the gruesome evidence of the hanging three days ago. The bodies of the thief and the elf-wench still hung there, grisly reminders of how the people of Flotsam treated criminals and non-humans. As Geralt approached their corpses, a murder (or possibly a half-murder) of crows cawed at him.
"Caw! Caw!" the crows said, before taking to the air in a black, cawing flourish.
Someone should really cut these bodies down, Geralt thought. Also, that dead elf-wench has a pretty great rack. He thought that as well.
Someone should really cut these bodies down, Geralt thought. Also, that dead elf-wench has a pretty great rack. He thought that as well.
Geralt turned and headed back towards the market district, swaggering in the lusty way in which only a Witcher swaggers. With the town square behind him, he paused to stretch his arms and his legs once more. His back ached, for he carried two super cool badass swords over his right shoulder, and the years of imbalance were seriously throwing his Witcher's shoulders out of whack.
Stretching complete, Geralt looked about the street, his awesome, catlike eyes drinking in every detail. Some guards leaned by a ramshackle shed, and across the way a bespectacled trinketmonger hawked his wares. As far as Geralt could tell, there was no danger here.
As he moved forward, his thoughts turned to wenches and sexiness, as a Witcher's thoughts so often do. His sweet leather pants itched. Weaving his way through the river merchants, layabouts, and playing children, Geralt made for town tavern, where his super-foxy sorceress paramour Triss Merigold was waiting.
"Triss Merigold," he said under his breath, because he liked saying her full name. "Triss. Merigold." It was a pretty great name, he thought.
Geralt passed a guard propositioning an exhausted-looking whore.
"Are you free?" asked the guard.
"Nah," replied the whore, "You're not handsome enough."
Geralt laughed lustily to himself, secure in the fact that he, Geralt of Rivia, was probably handsome enough.
As he walked, a group of children began following him, waving toy swords and shouting. Clearly they wanted to be like him, because he, Geralt of Rivia, was really cool, and children really want to be like cool people.
"Let's go kill some monsters!" shouted one child, while another wondered, "Why two swords? Does he tend to lose them?" It was about the sixteenth time the child had asked that, and it was beginning to grate on his Witcher nerves.
Halfway to the tavern, he met with unexpected trouble.
"Oy, there's the Witcher!" called a man's voice. Geralt stopped and regarded the speaker, a fat man with a shield strapped across his back. Behind him stood a small group of gaunt, unsexy mercenaries. The man was sweating, and it was kind of gross.
"Yes, here I am," said Geralt, mega-smoothly. He said it all smooth like that to impart that he was super cool, and in fact completely unthreatened by this brigand and his sorry band of men.
"You're the one who killed King Foltest! He is not the only king who has been killed so far, but the first one that anyone actually saw die!" the brigand exposited. "You were in prison for it but somehow you escaped, so I'm here to bring you back, dead or alive."
"Actually, it was a different Witcher did the deed," Geralt replied. "He's in league with the scoia'tael now. Though really, it's not clear whether he's actually in league with them or maybe with some other, more nefarious group of people. Possibly some sorceresses."
Geralt continued playing it super-cool. "I may have known him once, but then the Wild Hunt took me and Yennifer to an island somewhere, and I died, and then Yennefer saved me but I lost my memory."
"Wait, what?" said the bounty hunter.
"Yes, her name was Yennefer," said the Witcher. "I know, it's a weird name."
"I still don't understand."
"It's all kind of confusing," allowed Geralt.
"Ploughing whoreson!" shouted the brigand, and attacked.
Shall I regale you with the tale of this magnificent battle? For verily, it was magnificent. In a flash, Geralt accidentally drew his silver sword, then hastily put it back in its scabbard. The brigand hit Geralt in the back, and Geralt stumbled forward.
Shall I regale you with the tale of this magnificent battle? For verily, it was magnificent. In a flash, Geralt accidentally drew his silver sword, then hastily put it back in its scabbard.
The Witcher then drew his steel sword, relieved to have drawn the correct sword this time. Then, with great valor and cat-like speed, he rolled out of the way. He rolled again, and again, rolling like the wind, rolling like a small rock down a mountain, which would eventually pick up other larger rocks and form an avalanche.
Two of the bounty hunter's men came at him from the left, so he rolled to the right. He rolled to the right again, and then rolled to the left.
"Ploughing whoreson!" shouted the brigand.
Geralt rolled one more time, this time to the right, further down the alley. He paused and cast the Quen sign upon himself, surrounding his armor with a glowing, magical shield. He then rolled back towards his foes, accidentally rolling straight into a swinging sword. In the blink of an eye, he rolled away from them again, then rolled twice more. He rolled into a merchant's cart, then rolled away from it. Then he stood up and cast another Quen sign upon himself.
Geralt rolled towards one of the less-armored men and attacked him, his steel sword flying in a precise combination of light and heavy swings. The man went down, and Geralt rolled over his body and away from danger. He rolled again, and again, and again, occasionally swinging his sword between rolls, killing the bounty hunter's men one by one.
"Ploughing whoreson!" shouted the brigand.
Geralt swung his sword at the man over and over again, but the bounty hunter's shield absorbed every thrust. Geralt changed tactics, waiting for his foe to lower his guard and attack.
And the moment the brigand did attack, can you guess what the Witcher did? Oh, how he rolled! He rolled to the side, and then behind, and quick like a snake, thrust his sword into his enemy's ribcage. He did that about six more times, and finally the man died, somewhat unceremoniously if I'm being quite honest.
With the battle won, Geralt picked over the mercenaries' corpses, salvaging what little he could find. The pickings were slim: A handful of gold orens, three pieces of hardened leather, some wolfsbane, four pairs of trousers, six reams of cloth, a ream of heavy cloth, two bottles of beer, some diamond dust, some amethyst dust, a metal hunting trap, and eight bundles of timber. Geralt slipped his findings into his pouch.
"A fine show, Geralt," said a sexy, familiar voice.
Geralt looked up. There, standing at the corner of the street, was Triss Merigold.
"Triss Merigold," he said.
Triss Merigold was dresed in the same super-tight outfit that she had been wearing for the last three weeks. It really accented her hot boobs, which were sexy and huge and hot. Her red hair was pulled back from her sexy face, the better to allow her super-big sexy eyes to really pop. She lustily sauntered towards Geralt, her hips swaying. It was all Geralt could do not to sex her right there.
"Good to see you," Geralt said, lustiness creeping into the edge of his voice. "How's it been, staying with Roche's soldiers?"
"Splendid," Triss Merigold lustily replied. "I know every bad joke that anyone's ever thought up. Plus, I've learned how to burp out the official title of the Emperor of Nilfgaard without needing a beer, and I've learned Shorty's nickname has nothing to do with his manhood."
Triss Merigold sexily regarded the Witcher. "Nice to know that you care."
"Glad to see you in a good mood," Geralt joked, with great lust and sexiness.
Geralt and Triss Merigold turned and began to head towards the wooded outskirts of Flotsam. They had business with Cedric, a helpful and fairly good-looking elf who made his camp outside the town's walls.
The afternoon light had begun to turn a reddish hue, and evening was approaching. As they made their way to the town gates, they continued their conversation.
"I think I actually like Roche's soldiers," Triss Merigold said, laughing. "They're good people. One of them proposed to me."
"Who's the brave man?" the Witcher asked, absent-mindedly thinking about murder and sexing.
"Sorry," replied Triss Merigold, coyly. "That's a secret."
Triss pushed open the door to the forest and passed through it. Once she was through, she closed the door. Then Geralt approached the door and tried to open it, but found he could not. He fumbled at the door for a few minutes, unable to open it, before finally backing up, putting his hand firmly on the knob, and opening it.
Geralt emerged from the doorway into the hush of the great forest. It was, truly, the most super-pretty forest Geralt had ever laid eyes upon. Mist drifted between massive tree-trunks as the friscalating dusklight faded in the west. A torch burned at the camp's edge, and Geralt and Triss Merigold paused to stare at it. The fire was quite lovely, its deep orange flames standing out wonderfully against the swaying undergrowth. The whole scene was shockingly vivid.
"You go and talk to Cedric," said Triss Merigold. "I have some business to attend to." And with that, she sexily teleported away.
"Sheesh, Triss," Geralt muttered under his breath. "You sure you're not overusing those teleports?" The Witcher meant that in jest, and certainly not as any sort of foreshadowing or anything.
Twilight fell over the crazy-gorgeous woods, and a wolf howled in the distance. Geralt saw some herbs that he figured he could probably pick. He lustily made his way through the underbrush towards the glen where the herbs awaited.
—
Will Geralt pick the herbs? Will Cedric offer any useful advice? Will Triss Merigold develop an addiction to teleportation? Will Geralt get a new sword? Find out in the next chapter of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings: The Game: The Novel. Maybe.
If, tomorrow, I got a news release telling me Nolan North was the new play-by-play man for Madden NFL I would not bat an eye. He has lent his voice to just about every major video game release imaginable in the past five years. Now he will voice, of all characters, The Penguin, in Batman: Arkham City.
