The Witcher: My Own Path

I won't hide it; I was very excited. Standing in an old warehouse, filled with dusty furniture and other junk, but with the title deed to the place resting safely in my pocket dimension, I felt I could jump with joy. It was by no means about its proximity to the bank, as that didn't really interest me at the moment, I was more concerned with what was underneath my new property. If it had been any other building, I could have quietly given it to my father, in gratitude for taking care of me and trying to give me everything so that I could grow up to be a decent and educated man, but in the case of this property, I couldn't do that.

It is no secret to some, but an unknown knowledge to most, that the Denomination was built on the foundations of an elven city, it was a long time ago, and the books about it have mysteriously disappeared, if there were any at all. It's not like the people of this world would be proud of that fact. In the game, if my memory serves me right, you could get from this place to the aforementioned elven ruins, and to make things more interesting it was not just any ruins, it was an extraordinary place, built with great care. One could even say that after the magnificent throne that was there after the marble walls and the floor lined with the same material, these chambers were not ordinary. I suspect it was some kind of temple, and yet only a person from the ancient elves deserved such splendour and that was Lara Doren.

A circle of power, a teleport and many, many other undiscovered and unrepresented in-game possible treasures.

I covered my mouth and nose with a scarf to protect myself from the dust rising throughout the building, knelt in the middle of the room in a meditative position and delved into the power, spreading my tentacles of senses, burrowing them, into what was possibly beneath me. After a while, the power informed me of rooms and corridors deep below, my excitement growing as what I was discovering grew larger and deeper with each passing moment, as if the rooms and corridors were connecting, spreading out like a labyrinth. These corridors ended in some places and new ones began, ones that were probably already built by human hand. Canals.

Is it as I suspect? Old corridors and new. As soon as I could make secret passages between them, I would have access to every nook and cranny of Vizima. However, before I take any decision and action, I would need to examine everything personally, familiarise myself with possible dangers such as monsters, and then bring Gavorn in to look at everything and assess what could be renovated, rebuilt or added to.

Secret access to the entire Vizima would be extremely helpful for all my intelligence work, but also for my assassins. As for how I can use this, I will think about it at a later date, first I have to break through the half-meter deep floor and I don't really know what will await me there, at which point I will break through. First, I have to prepare myself properly in case of an encounter with any creature that might live there and for all possible traps. I reached into my pocket dimension for the equipment and gear I needed. Light armor created to mimic the armor of Sith warriors, my sword and a torch.

In order not to make too much noise and attract the curious, I slowly but effectively used my power to crumble and chip away at the stone floor, piece by piece. I tried to make a hole one meter in diameter, in each direction, so that, if necessary, there would be no problem in effectively masking the passage. Because of my own caution, the whole job took me about an hour when I finally broke through the floor into the chambers or corridors below me. I had no intention of going there straight away, at this point I was too mentally exhausted after the constant delving into the power. I needed to rest.

When I was ready, I lit my torch and dropped it, it didn't fly for long as it turned out that my home was above one of the corridors. I took a deep breath and jumped down. The smell of mustiness and dampness was everywhere, but it wasn't much of a problem, I picked up the torches from the floor and looked around, as far as the light cast by the flames would allow.

''Yep.'' I said to myself, and nodded at the increasing certainty of where I was. A corridor probably leading to an elven temple, the walls were still in very good condition despite the passage of time and dampness. They were smooth and shiny. Without hesitating I decided to head in the direction where the corridor slopes slightly downwards, somewhere my destination awaited me.

I won't hide, the width of the corridor and its height was a surprise to me, as was the length, in the game it could be walked literally in seconds, and I had been walking for five minutes. The echo of my footsteps reverberated off the walls, but that wasn't the only sound I was beginning to hear. The sound of water, like a waterfall. I quickened my step, curiously and excitedly kept asking myself in my head if this was the place. As I left the corridor, a huge Chamber appeared to my eyes, I don't know how high and deep, as apart from the flame of my torch I couldn't see much, but I realised it was the same place as in the game. A spiral staircase leading down half destroyed, a hole in the wall letting in a torrent of fresh water from Lake Vizima. I looked at it all, fantasising about the beauty and splendour that once existed in this place, which I intend to bring back by making this place the headquarters of my covert operations.

Suddenly I was snapped out of my musings by a power, it warned me of impending danger, without thinking, I immersed myself in the power and surrounded my body with it. With a quick movement of my body, I dodged away from something that flashed before my eyes, and appeared to be a delicate hand that nevertheless had unnaturally huge and sharp claws. If the power had not warned me, the thing would have ripped my head into strips. I quickly jumped back, pulling my torches out in front of me, and that's when I saw it in all its nasty and murderous glory. An alp! Pale as a corpse she floated about a few inches above the ground. Huge, disgusting pimples and boils with bits of skin coming off her body. She looked similar to a zombie from my old world. She had infernal auburn hair and big fangs. She was all naked but there was nothing appealing about it… I was overwhelmed with fear but also rage, at my own stupidity and lack of attention. I squeezed the sword I held in my right hand, ready to quarter this abomination as fast as I could, but this time too I counted. Just as I was about to raise the weapon, the ghastly vampire threw herself towards me, opening her maw and screaming, putting me in a momentary stun. It didn't last long, but the bitch had enough time to attack me with the claws of her right hand. Her knife-like long nails went through my light armor like a piece of paper, drawing three deep wounds on my chest. The pain snapped me out of my daze, my rage almost reaching its peak, gathering a huge amount of power in a flash, I threw it out of me in an instant, in all directions like a pulse, screaming at full volume. The creature flew back three metres and staggered confused, but this was not the end of what I was about to do, this wench would suffer and suffer so much that she would return to the time of her ancestors and beg them to abandon her lines on the family tree, never to be born. The dark side was bubbling up inside me, rejoicing at the fact that I had finally decided to break the dam that had held her back for so long. In one swift leap I reached the monster and stood before it, my sword and torch levitated above my head as I stretched both hands towards it, the blue of lightning, a pure manifestation of the dark side lit up the chamber of the ancient temple even more. As my lightning bolts reached her body she began to scream shrilly, but this time not in an attack on me but in pain, I had no intention of stopping and pitying the creature, I dove even deeper into the dark side, adding more power to the lightning bolts.

Lightning licked her flesh, burning her alive, the stench and smoke rising over her already dead vampire body, but I didn't care, she was supposed to feel my rage in her soul, if she had one at all. She shook in spasms until she fell to the floor, I paused for a second only to resume unloading my rage on her with more ferocity. I didn't wonder if enough was enough, if her body didn't have an ounce of instincts left in it. I razed her with flashes of power until she was completely disintegrated. What was left of her was only ash and my all-consuming rage spreading in all directions.

I was panting loudly, quickly lowered my sword and torches, walked to the wall and slid down it. I pulled off my armor to examine my own injuries. I was all bloody with deep wounds, once healed there would surely be scars left, but it wasn't the wounds themselves that worried me, my quick regeneration would take care of that. But the possible poison it could have on its claws. I reached for the power once more and examined the wound, searching for foreign bodies, bacteria and viruses that could poison my body. When I found nothing, I let go. I wanted to rinse the wound with the water I had hidden in my equipment, but I didn't manage to do so. My adrenaline was gone and fatigue was setting in, I just wanted to close my eyes for a while, but I felt I was falling into a deep sleep. I drifted off.