The Lead Character in My Own Tale
Winter, 1374
It has been a while since I seriously considered my future. I have been a resident at Glister for more than two years and I’m beginning to grow dissatisfied with the direction my life is taking.
When I first arrived in Glister, in the spring of 1372, my goal was to convince Lord Marbrand to let me study from his grimoires. Misfortune befell me, and the good Lord Marbrand, for he was found dead the day after my arrival. I got caught up in solving the mystery of his death, the ascension of Quentyn Martell to the seat of the unfortunate late lord’s domain, and the vanquishing and imprisonment of a vicious demon.
From that point onward, I became a trusted counsellor to Lord Martell, helped Glister thrive, expand its influence, and defeat its threats. I’ve made career choices for the good of Glister, and crafted a magical container at great personal expense to further secure the imprisoned demon.
I’ve done a lot for the ones around me. I’ve done a lot for Glister and its people. But I’ve stagnated as a wizard. With the exception of a handful of scrolls liberated from the High Pass Keep, everything I’ve learned was self-taught.
I never did find Lord Marbrand’s grimoires.
While I have settled in as best I could, the people around me don’t take me seriously. They see me as a tool. I’ve not made any real friends, or any real connections, nor learned anything that I couldn’t have learned elsewhere.
Quentyn cares only for his advancement as a lord. I’ve been useful enough to him that he allows me to stay at the mansion, but he considers me nothing more than an obedient court wizard whose arcane forces he can apply as an answer to the question on how to further his success. My presence lends his rulership some allure and legitimacy. He completely neglects the work I put into optimising the crop yields, the time I put into working through the ledgers in order to figure out how to integrate the settlers, or what I sacrificed in order to come up with a more permanent solution to the problem of the imprisoned demon.
Truth be told, I hear his Westchester accent and it nostalgically makes me long for home. I have let that grow into a misplaced sense of loyalty. His ambitions of governance were exactly the reasons why I left Cormyr, but these old familiarities drew me to him because they were comfortable and safe. But I do not want to be a pawn in politics. I do not want to be used like a weapon to achieve another man’s goals!
David doesn’t seem to care for anything at all, certainly not my feelings or opinions. He does as he pleases and is as stubborn as a castle wall. In comparison to Quentyn, whom I suspect harbours the same false sense of kinship that I feel for him, David truly sees nothing more than a wizard. As long as my interests are aligned with his we walk the same path, but the instant that changes he’ll set out without me. He has not one ounce of excess sentiment for me. No discussion, no hesitation, he’ll simply keep walking, whether I follow him or not.
David thinks me naive, foolish, dumb or all of the above. He’s so rigid that he takes a dogmatic stance in every disagreement. I intellectually outrank him by a country mile, but I wonder if he realises that. I wonder if he even considers intellect a virtue. I can imagine many situations in which I would help him achieve his goals, but I can’t imagine any in which he’d help me achieve mine.
Jago… I only have good things to say about Jago. He’s kind, loyal, smart, resourceful and caring. He’s been in Glister as long as I have, but he’s entrenched himself deeply among the people of the Hoof. He has become like a brother to Widukin, of enormous value to Quentyn for his ranging and scouting missions and an undeniably good fit among the settlers of Oak Hill.
He has everything a man could possibly ask for in terms of talent and potential, so the only criticism I could have about Jago is that he could do with a little more personal ambition. His aloofness, I suspect, is an attempt to hide his humble and soft-hearted nature. He has had a rough beginning, and I’d wager that a personality like his wouldn’t last very long without the façade on the harsh streets of the cities along the northern Moonsea coast. He reminds me of Olivar and perhaps that’s why I like him so much.
And so I’m stuck with three people with which I maintain unequal relationships. Jago doesn’t care for me the same way I care for him. Quentyn cares only for what I can do to achieve his goals. And David doesn’t care for me at all.
It’s time for me to start playing the lead character in my own tale, rather than playing a minor character in the tale of another. I will try to gather the resources necessary for me to depart after the winter. It will be three years since I arrived and high time for me to find place that either accepts me, or caters to my own goals. Perhaps the great forests of the dalelands, or the tempestuous sword coast beyond. We’ll see.
Nighttime March to Glister
4th Day, 1st Ride, 10th Month, 1374th Year
We camped in between the outer wall of the keep and the broken tower, trying to stay as far away from the stench of the troglodyte bodies as we could. Even after death they seem to ooze an indescribable stench that was hard on my stomach. Jago once again stunned me with his practical sense by building a large, smokey fire to cover up the stench.
We had a discussion about what to do next. We considered several options; going back to join Ser Fosco on the Thar, trying to find the second troglodyte camp, heading back to Glister. Every option seemed to have a strong drawback which kept us from deciding anything. Instead, we decided to go to sleep and make a decision fresh and early in the morning.
One thing that struck me during the conversation was the notion that before we found the carnage at the Lizard’s tower the troglodytes and gnolls had been collaborating. I asked how that conclusion was reached, and Widukin explained that he recalled the gnolls and troglodytes meeting after the encounter at the Stillwater Rapids. During that time I was dealing with a surge of adrenaline and repeated spasms from voiding the contents of my stomach. I had just taken a deep breath of the vile mist the troglodytes were capable of producing, and I was not well. It bothered me tremendously that I had only learned of that encounter then. It changes a few things.
My assumption had always been that the Lizard’s Tower was the base of operations for a troglodyte leader who held tight and merciless control. Our conversation with Gal’nutha reinforced the idea that Oxul’nitha was that leader. Her powers are demonic and more than enough to drive the troglodytes to these acts of aggression. But I don’t believe that she would have enough power to bend gnolls and ogres to her will.
No, a far more powerful force is at work here. I suspect the ogre mage we spotted at the Stillwater Rapids is in charge of the gnolls and ogres and has enlisted Oxul’nitha and her troglodyte followers.
5th Day, 1st Ride, 10th Month, 1374th Year
When I awoke the following day, I quickly began to prepare my spells for the day. I noticed that Gunnar had perched himself atop a section of wall that was left standing. He was performing an augury. Later he said he wanted to return to Glister. He wouldn’t speak with certainty on what augured, but he felt it for the best if he made his way back.
A conversation was had about how to proceed next. A consensus was reached that the men on the Thar would come and take up shelter at the tower, preventing Gal’nutha from moving in and retaking the tower and keep for herself. I volunteered to help the men bring down the goods since I had prepared a lot of arcanokinetic spells. Gunnar would make his way to the ropes that Ser Fosco and the others had prepared for a possible hasty retreat and make his way over the Thar towards Glister.
I took off flying, together with Blackwing. I had yet to really take the time to go flying with her, but it was as exhilarating and energising as expected. The sense of freedom, of opportunity and of mobility was unparalleled. Long have I desired to be able to fly. Since the time where I was bed-ridden as a young boy I’ve dreamed about it. It helps that it significantly relieves the pain in my joints that I feel when walking for long stretches at a time.
Fly
Bo med faal ven
Fly like the wind
Arriving at Ser Fosco’s camp, we found that Sigbart was not doing very well. The bloodloss he had incurred was too profound for him to remain warm, despite a good campfire. It would take a long while before he would recover and to do so he would have to return to Glister. Gunnar, who arrived at the camp a little while later, would take Sigbart, three donkeys, some excess supplies and building materials, back to Glister. I helped levitate the other two donkeys, together with the rest of the men, down to the marshes below the Thar.
We arrived back at the keep around noon. Jago and Widukin had busied themselves in searching for troglodyte tracks. They had found tracks leading south-by-south-east. It was unclear which group the tracks had belonged to, but the going theory was that they belonged to whoever survived the fight at the keep. It lead me to think about the fight again.
The gnolls and ogres are seemingly working together with the troglodytes. I now believe they do so under the leadership of the ogre mage. But they are probably very reluctant bedfellows, and infighting is likely. What if the fight between at the keep was nothing more than a reestablishment of dominance within a loosely aligned group with a common goal? And if so, who won?
After showing Ser Fosco around the keep, making special note about the tunnel entrance through which we sneaked into the keep, we left him and the rest of the men and set off down the path through the forest leading towards the small river. We kept following the tracks that Jago had found and followed them upstream for a while before they lead north. The tracks were essentially heading roughly in the same direction as we had come from, except that they passed between the hill that held the keep and the hill we suspected held another camp.
When we were about middle way between the keep and the other camp Jago reported he had found gnoll tracks which crossed the troglodyte tracks. Jago estimated that they were tracks coming from the keep and heading towards the other camp. The gnoll tracks were freshest, which meant that the gnolls had crossed from the keep to the other camp after the troglodytes that we’d been following had made their way from the keep to the river and back north.
What did this say about what happened at the keep? Were the gnolls victorious? Did they come to the keep to hand out the orders given by the ogre mage and did they enforce them by engaging in battle? Did the surviving members of the troglodyte, now beaten into submission depart for the river only to return north again under orders from the ogre mage?
The tracks continued and we kept following them. Soon after, Jago found more troglodyte tracks coming from the direction of the second camp, joining the tracks of the group of troglodytes we were following and heading north. North towards Glister. At that point I thought Gunnar may have had the right of it.
We continued following the tracks down the path until the path veered off west towards the Thar. Shortly after, the tracks seemed to turn north again, away from the path and up a hill. Another discussion started about what to do next and what the troglodyte actions meant.
David, who had grown very quiet and was unwilling to engage in conversation, suddenly walked off without a word and continued down the path. My guess is that he was tired of the talking, the indecisiveness and confusion. For a man of the cloth he has little patience for contemplation, rhetoric and counselling. He is a man of action. Either that or thinks us all stupid.
Quentyn had given up trying to penetrate David’s reasons for doing anything, and he wasn’t about to run after him. He ordered us to continue following the tracks. I suspected that perhaps the troglodytes decided not to follow the path but continue straight across the hill in order to save time.
Atop the hill we found a clearing where the tracks temporarily got muddled. Eventually Widukin and Jago decided that this had been a site where the troglodytes had met up with two other smaller groups of troglodytes. There were several dead troglodytes in the clearing, whose throats had been slit and hands had been severed. This gave me the confidence to assume that Oxul’nitha was among the group of troglodytes and she was either demanding a sacrifice from the smaller groups who were joining her, or she was preparing for battle and made offerings for good fortune.
We continued on, deciding to skip eating, despite the dying light. Soon after we caught up with David, who had continued to follow the path. This supported my earlier assumption that the troglodytes had cut across the hill in order to save time. We decided to give up trying to search for tracks and simply march for Glister. Soon afterwards, we started hearing sounds coming from the north, coming from the woods that lay more land inward, away from the Thar.
Jago spotted five stalkers along our path, laying in wait to ambush us. We could either fight, maneuver around them. I handed out dollops of the protective ointment to everyone. If we were going to have to fight them it was best we were protected against their awful stench. While we were getting ready to attack, Widukin shot off an arrow, which missed horribly but sent them scurrying away. Clearly they were not interested in a fight where they weren’t able to catch us off guard.
We continued down the path and a little while later I heard some draconic hissing coming from the darkness up ahead. I was trying to make out what was being said, but couldn’t quite hear it without moving in closer. Suddenly we heard drumming of weapons against wooden shields coming from our right, more land inward, and was afeared we were getting boxed in by another group of troglodytes.
We decided to retreat in order to not get caught between the Stillwater Lake and two groups of troglodytes. Soon after we heard a fight coming from up ahead. We heard gnolls resoundingly defeating the troglodytes who we had heard hissing and whispering in the darkness. I had been completely off, the group banging weapons on their shields weren’t troglodytes but gnolls.
Why would gnolls, who shared a common cause with the troglodytes, be attacking the troglodytes? Was their dissension within their ranks? Were they ordered to set an example? Was this another case of infighting? I decided that we needed answers before we could effectively decide what to do or how to proceed.
We snuck back down the path towards Glister and found the corpses of the defeated troglodytes. Further down the road we came upon a group of three brutes, six stalkers and four regular troglodytes. A well-placed fireball took out the stalkers and two of the regulars. The other two regulars ran off, but the brutes engaged. Two of the brutes we cut down with fire and steel, but not before they managed to critically injure Widukin.
Fireball
Ag ko faal toor do Dinoksetiid
Burn in the inferno of the end times
I called for the last brute to be taken alive for interrogation. It took David, Jago and Quentyn to bring the beast down and tie him up. Now it was time to use a spell to read its mind and get some answers!
What is Next, or A Post Witcher Funk
Having finished my second play-through of the Witcher, I’m struggling to come to grips that it’s over. I managed to discover so much more on my second go. I managed to beat the game on the highest difficulty setting, and I think I’ve done all that I would want to do. Sure, I could go back for another go and, say, let Radovid live, or choose Triss Merigold over Yennefer of Vengerberg, or let Ciri die… but I’m happy having killed Radovid on both my play-throughs. I’m happy with Yennefer on both play-throughs, and I’m happy with Ciri having become empress in my first play-through and a witcher on my second.
One of the reasons I decided upon a second play-through is because I had made a choice in the Blood and Wine expansion — which was amazing, I’d like to add — that lead to the death of both Anna Henrietta and her sister Sylvia Anna, which I hated. Replaying the DLC was a treat, and I got to experience an entirely portion of the story which I didn’t even know existed. The Land of a Thousand Fables storyline was amazing. But then, the Orianna storyline that I went through the first time was pretty cool, too.
Anyway, I’m level capped, I have all the grandmaster legendary witcher outfits, I’ve explored all the question marks on the map, and there’s little for me to do. I have to admit that it’s time to stop playing the game, even though I don’t want to yet. I had the same after both play-throughs I did for Mass Effect 1-3; I feel the incredible sadness and emptiness. I know I’ll find something new, that there are plenty more fish in the sea, but I can’t imagine anything gripping me as tightly and engrossing me as much as this game did.
But what now? What’s next? Well, I’ve started reading the books, which are amazing. I’ve also started playing the second game, which is okay. Both give me a lot of context for the game, and might tempt me to do another play-through of the game at a later point. I still have a few games that I could play, but in the wake of The Witcher, I simply don’t feel like anything will fill that void.
The Lizard’s Tower
4th Day, 1st Ride, 10th Month, 1374th Year
After the fight with the priestess, I took a moment to look around for any items the priest might have left behind. I found the crudely carved snake figurine that the shaman threw at me. I decided to keep it with me, perhaps I could use it to intimidate one of the simpler troglodytes in the future.
It had occurred to me that the enormous snake that Quentyn, David and eventually Gunnar, killed, would likely have to have eaten at least one adult troglodyte each day in order to attain and maintain that size. I guess we know what happens to all the troglodytes who refuse to submit to Oxul’nitha or bow to Sess’Inek.
Further down the tunnel we found a wall with small hand and foot holds. Quentyn couldn’t manage to climb up due to the slimy and wet stone. So Jago climbed up first and I followed him, carrying my rope on my back. We lowered the rope and Jago could lift items back up while I made some light.
Finally, everyone climbed up along the wall, with the exception of Quentyn. At that point we heard a slithering. I asked Jago to light another torch, while I summoned an unseen servant to carry the torch to the next corner of the tunnel. At least we might have some advance notice in case something came slithering down the tunnel.
And something did; first two, and later two more snakes appeared. These were not as big as the previous snakes. And these were not constrictors, these were vipers. I called out to the others and Jago immediately called upon his patron to summon forth a rat the size of a small dog. I traded places with David and then with Quentyn, leaving space for them to engage the vipers.
We got closer to the exit of the cave and we got a hint of the troglodyte excretion. We all used some of the ointment we had made before we rushed out.
We exited through a thick curtain of roots and bushes and we emerged on the lowest level inside the tower. The tower was in a sorry state; the entire interior had collapsed in on itself and most of the walls had jaggedly collapsed all around. The ground was littered with stones, brambles and weeds, as well as shards of flint, crude pottery and lots of bones. A ruined, once arched entrance on one side of the tower had long since lost its keystone and had since started to lose stones overhead. Despite that, the entry was clear and often used.
Opposite of the entrance, at the back wall of the tower, was a large block of stone, adorned with dismembered troglodyte hands and crude writing in dark blood. It was clearly an altar, once to Laogzed, but now defaced with praise and iconography of Sess’Inek.
Walking around the bottom one could hear crunching of small bones underfoot.
The tower’s radius was about five yards. I carefully made my way to the offering stone to investigate the writing on it. My footsteps made crunching noises as I crushed small bones, brittle twigs and shards of stones underfoot. Jago went to take a look outside the tower, and quickly found a battle scene, littered with many bodies of troglodytes, a few gnolls, and even an ogre or two. Quentyn could make out from the wounds that the fight had been between the troglodytes and gnolls, with the ogres likely fighting alongside the gnolls, like we had seen at cairned camp on the way back from the High Pass Keep.
The crude draconic writing on the offering stone were made by someone who clearly didn’t understand what they were writing. The eldest ones were offerings to Laogzed, while the newer ones were dedicated to Sess’Inek. On the alter there was a golden coin, covered in blood, surrounded by dismembered troglodyte hands.
David took out the suntoken and compared it to the gold coin, it being roughly the same size. I called the unseen servant to clean the coin in order for us to examine it more closely. David decided to pick up the coin, and just as I wanted to warn him not to do so, I started to notice the mist coming up from the inside of the broken, tower walls. There was a sudden blast of air that threw me backwards. As I scrambled back up, a dozen strange figures emerged from the mud. Two of them lunged at me, and I didn’t know what to do, so I levitated myself up, away and out of danger.
Levitate
Fus kotin faal su
Force into the air
When I looked down, I saw what these things were; dretches, the foot soldiers of the tanar’ri. Cowardly creatures who overwhelm with numbers, and could summon other demons. I was confused as to what they were doing here. The two below me seemed to be mindlessly trying to grab for me, but one of them stopped and summoned another, which appeared from the ground.
I kept out of range and cast a burning hands on them, which didn’t really seem to do that much damage. The rest were faring quite well against the dretches. I decided to levitate myself upward and out of the tower to take a better look at the situation around the tower. The dretches who I had ignited seemed to have fled the battlefield.
Burning Hands
Ag voth yol nol haali
Burn with fire from my hands
I came up from the tower and saw the Thar, the barrows, the construction that Ser Fosco had built on the edge of the Thar, the forests and the clearing of the Oldmark, and the trail to Hulburg. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any trace of the ones that had attacked the tower
I heard David yell down below and saw him use the gold coin, held it out before him, and rebuke the Dretches. Five of the Dretches exploded in rancid, muddy chunks. Unbelievable. It was an incredibly risky move to use the coin without him knowing exactly what it was, but it seemed to have paid off, because otherwise he would have been overwhelmed.
What are these lower abyssal creatures doing showing up here? While the others were killing off the dretches, I took another look to see if I could find the other camp on the hillock close to the tower. I saw the area where the camp was supposed to be and saw the forest had thinned out, probably because of logging. It was too dark and the forest was too thick for me to make out anything else.
When I came down the situation seemed well under control. Quentyn asked what the creatures were, and I told him that they were lesser demons. Sess’Inek is a greater tanar’ri, which would explain the presence of the dretches.
Sess’Inek, Nar-Narg-Naroth, Yeenoghu, these are all tanar’ri. Zenghi obeyed Orcus, the demon prince of undead. Am I just making connections because my mind yearns for there to be a pattern, or is there really something there?
The carcasses were cleared from the courtyard and we used them to close the entrance to the caverns underneath the tower. We set up camp between the tower and the outside wall. It was defensible, sheltered from the elements and relatively clear of the stench of the bodies. Later Jago would start a large fire with some moist branches thrown in for good measure; the smoke from the fire would mask the stench from the bodies. He’s so clever.
Blackwing returned in the early evening and said that she was well-fed by Mund and said she was in touch with Godric, whom she called “dog throat”.
Gal’nutha approached with her two bodyguards and asked how long we would stay. Quentyn wanted them to know that we were going to stay until the morning, but that the tower was his possession. I advised him against it, cautioning that we would have to think about our safety and the safety of Ser Fosco on the Thar.
Gal’nutha asked to take some of the bodies. She went into the tower and spent another hour consecrating the altar, removing the Sess’Inek paraphernalia and painting a toad on it with the blood of one of the troglodytes. She took two gnoll bodies and departed for the Thar.