Message On A Baggie

     Troy and his band of merry misfits managed to offload a total of twenty seven potions the night of their follow up meeting with Raleigh. He had demanded as much money as he could get from his merchant employees and even went so far as to liquidate a couple of his less important assets.

     Before completing their transaction, Troy had insisted that Raleigh offer them any information that he had available that would make infiltrating the underground's of other city's an easier task. Raleigh, of course, had obliged and not only told them what he knew but also offered them special coins that  would mark them as VIPs within the underground circles of Novigrad, Oxenfurt, and Vengeburg.

     After returning to the Lab Wagon camouflaged in illusions, they had slept peacefully in their rooms and awoke the next morning, ready to spend the entire day in the surrounding countryside searching for Alchemical and Apothecarial ingredients.

     The following day, the disillusioned Lab Wagon was loaded up and readied for departure. After each one of the newly rich Quartet had boarded the wagon and had their horses hitched, they then exited through the southern gate following a very specific route that Troy had laid out for them.

     Now that Gilly had her own horse and would be learning how to ride in her free time, the Lab Wagon wove its way through the farmhouses and crafting stalls surrounding Ban Glean led by four horses.

     The sight of this splendid wagon and its entourage of three white haired men with yellow viper-like eyes all dressed in full witcher armor managed to draw quite a few stares from the surrounding peasants.

     As they passed one of the last farmhouses, a middle aged woman, who was walking towards her front door carrying a basket of wrapped supplies, also turned to gaze at the impressive procession.

     As she gazed at what her peasant eyes perceived as an impressive and luxurious carriage, she noticed one of the white haired men, sitting atop the driver's bench and wearing the slightest of smiles, place two fingers near his temple and gestured towards her in a casual salute.

     She replied with a slight smile of her own, even though she had no idea why this person, who seemed to be a complete stranger despite the nostalgic sense of familiarity she received when looking at him, would do such a thing and it left her a bit flustered and confused.

     However, neither he nor the carriage he was riding stalled or stopped. The carriage continued on its way and the stranger's smile disappeared almost as abruptly as it had appeared.

     Not being entirely sure how to feel about this event or even sure whether or not it had really happened, she turned back around and walked back into her house.

     Once inside, she walked into the kitchen aiming to set the basket down on the table only to notice that the table was not as bare as she had left it. She immediately stopped in her tracks, upon witnessing a rather large leather sack,  that appeared to contain a rather large quantity of something or another, sitting on top of her table with a very expensive looking envelope leaning against it. The envelope was sealed with red wax that had a capital letter 'D' in a gothic type font imprinted upon it.

     Setting the basket on a chair next to the table, she first pulled open the top of the sack to see what was within and nearly had a heart attack after witnessing all of the shiny gold ducats within.

     At this point, she was almost scared to read the letter but, of course, her curiosity eventually got the better of her. After a couple of minutes of regaining her composure and confirming her resolve, she reached a shaking hand out, grasped the letter, broke the seal, and retrieved the letter within.

     Upon reading the first words on the paper, she immediately dropped into the empty chair she was standing beside and tried her best not to cry.

[Hello Mother,

     I hope you and Father are doing well. I know that it's been a long time since the last time we saw each other and it could be that you may have even believed me to be dead.

     However, now that I have the opportunity, I thought that you should know the truth about why I disappeared. You did after all raise me and cared for me at least for the short five years we were together.

     The young boy that you called Dravis was and still is me, the person writing this letter, although I no longer go by that name. As you and Father may have suspected, I was no ordinary child and my superior intelligence and maturity prevented me from being able to continue living the peasant life as you all do.

     Knowing all that I could be but would most likely never get the opportunity to be living as a peasant, I decided that I needed to get away. Thus, whenever I heard that a witcher was coming to our city, I knew it may very well have been my only chance to do so. I had a desperate need to walk the path of power, something I knew I could never do in Ban Glean.

     So, in order to avoid wasting your and  my time with an entire journal's worth of details explaining exactly what has happened to me since then, this short reassurance will have to suffice.

     After tricking the visiting witcher into thinking I was an abandoned child, I traveled with him to Kaer Morhen. There I not only completed all of the necessary training to become a witcher but I also had a conduit moment and began training as a sorcerer as well.

     Suffice it to say, I have accomplished my goal of walking the path of power, even if my path is not yet complete. Both my witcher brothers and myself are among the most powerful witchers to graduate from Kaer Morhen. As for myself, I continue to grow even stronger as my magical training continues.

     I've sent you this letter so that you may know that your son is not dead but that he's also not someone whom you need to worry yourself over. I have acquired much of the power that I originally sought out and I'm more than capable of taking care of myself. Even if I somehow find myself in a tough situation, I know that my brothers will have my back.

     With all that being said, thank you, for feeding me, tending to me, and loving me! 

     Simply know that I'm alive and well but we cannot have any known connections to each other. I will certainly return to Ban Glean at some point but you should not attempt to approach me or my friends at that time.

     As witchers and especially with me being a sorcerer, there are certain dangers that may be easily handled by us but would be deadly for you. Thus, if anyone found out that you are connected to me, that would simply turn you both into a burden weighing me down and making my life that much more deadly.

     Inside the accompanying bag, you should find five thousand ducats. This is a trivial amount in comparison to the profits that we have and will continue to make and so you needn't worry about my financial situation. This money is intended not only as both a thank you and an apology but also to be used to help you step up from your current social position, if you so desire. If not, then simply set it aside in case of an emergency.

Thanks again for everything! 

Your son, formerly known as Dravis!

P.S. Once you and Father both have had a chance to read this, make sure that you burn it completely to ashes, with not a single scrap left.]

     As she finished reading the letter, her cheeks were streaked with tears that continued to pour forth from her eyes. She wasn't sad but she wasn't happy either. Or maybe she was happy but simply couldn't tell because of all the other emotions that the reading of this letter had roused within her.

     Whatever else might be wrong with her life, she now knew that her long lost son was alive and thriving in this cruel world. That knowledge in itself gave her a peace of mind that she had not known in many years.

     As soon as her husband returned home from the fields, she showed him the letter and the ducats and he rejoiced upon hearing this wonderful news. 

     Soon afterwards, they began planning out the new lives they would pursue as merchants of flowers and pelts, after building a nice little fenced-in cottage just outside the city.

-----

     The potion peddlers steered their Lab Wagon around to the east side of Ban Glean and then headed directly down the road traveling parallel to the Pontar River.

     On the fourth day of slow and steady travel, they had very nearly pulled completely past the mountain range. It was early fall and so while the weather wasn't ideal it wasn't much of a problem either.

     The four of them had made twenty thousand ducats a piece after setting aside a thousand for reinvesting into locally sold ingredients. Of course, all of the ingredients available for sale in all of Ban Glean weren't worth a thousand ducats and so they still had reinvestment funds they could spend at their next stop.

     While this left them with quite the stock of ingredients, the ingredients required for their potions were not necessarily your typical Alchemical or Apothecarial ingredients. 

     Because of the revolutionary nature of their new potion making progress, the only known ingredients were, Harpsud Fruit, Liloma Flowers, and White Paisley. Any other potential ingredient combinations they would have to work out themselves, through a multitude of trial and error experiments. This, of course, meant that nearly every known plant and monster or animal body part was under suspicion of being a potential potion ingredient. They suspected that it may very well take them years just to develop even a single other potion recipe.

     Thus, stopping fairly regularly to search the surrounding forests and fields for ingredients slowed them down quite substantially.

     As they continued their journey, Geralt sat upon the driver's bench guiding the Lab Wagon, while Troy and Jorgen were scouring the surroundings for potential ingredients. Gilly was, of course, inside the wagon. She had already made quite a few potions during the last few days and had been making even more Apothecarial brews, since she woke up that morning.

     Troy had bought her a book on botany and told her she should familiarize herself with non Alchemical and non Apothecarial plants. It was this book that she was reading, while another book on animal parts sat on her counter and Troy kept the wagon moving slowly and steadily forward.

     It was early evening, around two thirty, and Troy had his senses on full alert for any potential threats. They had almost left the Pontar valley behind and would probably arrive in Murivel, the first sizable settlement on their side of the river, by the morning.

     Geralt looked up into the sky and could just barely make out a brown dot that seemed to be moving ever closer. It only took a moment for the brown dot to begin to resemble a bird and less than a moment later for it to begin to resemble something far more dangerous.

     "Troy! Look sharp! In the sky! Two O'clock!" Geralt alerted Troy to the incoming danger.

     Troy was up next in the contract rotation and, although none of them needed to do contracts after entering the potion's business, they had all decided that they would continue doing contracts regardless. Not only would it help make them seem less suspicious, it would also provide them with valuable experience to sharpen their skills. Due to the high price they had to pay for their skills, mutations, and knowledge, there wasn't a witcher alive who would want to lose all of that due to negligence.

     Troy looked towards the direction Geralt had indicated and was able to see the figure of Gryphon heading their way at a tremendous speed.

     After hearing Geralt's warning, he pulled the wagon to a stop, Jorgen quickly returned to the wagon bench, and Gilly moved closer to the small window in the wagon's front, in hopes of catching sight of some of the action.

     Troy watched the Gryphon closing in on his position as he cast the Quen sign. Taking out a crossbow that he had purchased in Ban Glean, he loaded it with a bolt enchanted to have increased flight speed and weight.

     The Gryphon was approaching a targeting distance and so he took aim at its right wing, gauged its angle of descent against the bolts flight path, and waited for exactly the right moment.

     A second later he loosed the bolt, gave it a little boost with his Chaos, and witnessed it ripping straight through the Gryphon's right wing as its smooth descent was interrupted.

     The Gryphon reflexively retracted its now bleeding wing, causing it to turn sideways and fall straight towards the ground where Troy was standing. Troy unleashed his most potent Aard directly into the oncoming Gryphon and watched as its fall caused it to suffer greatly when being crushed between the two forces of Aard and its own momentum.

     Quite a bit of earth, dust, and foliage was sent into the air upon the Gryphon impacting the ground and eventually Troy's Quen shield. The Quen shield broke but left Troy pushed back but unharmed.

     Recovering quickly from the ground he lost to the Gryphon's momentum, Troy pulled out his silver sword, made a B-line for the Gryphon's neck, and cast Veles (Lightning) at the Gryphon's face to interrupt its attempts to recover.

     Using all his strength, he plunged the sword deep into the Gryphon's throat and then immediately jumped backwards, dodging its head that had jerked towards him. Continuing to retreat even further from the beak that lashed out towards him immediately afterwards, he watched as the mighty beast thrashed about now that it had recovered.

     However, the whole in its neck would soon spell its demise and its feverish attempts to retaliate only hastened that inevitable end.

     After several more seconds of watching the struggling Gryphon attempt to fight back, they finally witnessed the beast twitching its last twitch and approached its corpse.

     "So, am I the only one who thinks it's weird that a regular run of the mill Gryphon would attack a group of humans on such a heavily traveled road. Between our bony body's, the fact that Gryphons typically know where the best food is, and the fact that he neglected the horses only to dive straight at Troy, I'd say there's definitely something more to this attack than simply a monster's instincts." Geralt commented.

     "Agreed! I can't, at the moment, guess what else might be afoot here but I don't think roaming about the countryside scouring every inch of wilderness for clues is a practical path forward. Let's section him off, get his parts onto the Lab Wagon, and then resume our travels. We should arrive in Murivel by morning, if we're lucky, perhaps we will find some leads in Murivel."

     Thus, the potion dealers secured their kill, loaded up the wagon, and headed once more towards their destination.