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The man was jolted awake, as if he’d been dreaming before, and his eyebrows furrowed into a frown. “What’s going on?” He looked up.

The man had a peculiar face. His dark-brown hair was billowing in the air, and it was glistening with grease. Dandruff filled his shoulders, and a messy goatee adorned his chin. He had a protruding brow ridge, flat nose, and a mousey look. Roy squinted at him. The man looked like a baboon in a robe.

“That’s our line. You should watch where you’re going.” Roy held down the urge to laugh and pointed at the sign that said ‘Closed.’ “The shop is closed for now. They aren’t taking any customers. You can come back in two days.”

“I’m not here for the shop. I’m here for that guy inside there.” The man sneered, and Roy thought it was impossible for a baboon to sneer. “He took my money, but he didn’t do his job. He violated the contract, and it’s all written here!” The man whipped out a contract and showed it to the witcher. “A deal’s a deal. Even a king has to respect that. Are you going to stop me from taking my money back?”

The witchers realized this must have been Berengar’s creditor. He’s the madman Berengar talked about. He just has to come when the swords are almost done. “Calm down, sir. Berengar is no deadbeat.”

“Are you his friends? Witchers from the same school? Are you paying his debt for him?” The man glanced at Roy, stopping for a moment to look at his eyes and pendant.

“I’m Roy, and this is Letho. We’re from the Viper School, and you can think of us as Berengar’s friends if you want. How should we address you, sir?” Roy looked at the obsidian pendant hanging from the man’s neck.

“I’m Kalkstein. I’m an alchemist,” the man answered, and Roy cast Observe on him.

‘Kalkstein

Age: Two hundred and nine years old

Status: Alchemist (He has mastered the pinnacle of alchemy: potion crafting, biology, chemistry, and magic creation)

Free sorcerer (Magic flows through his body quietly. He hasn’t joined the Brotherhood of Sorcerers)

***

Roy massaged his temples, and he was starting to get into a dilemma. This baboon of a man before him was no simple guy. If everything went well, he would run into Geralt multiple times in the future. He was a generous alchemist who helped the White Wolf many times. His most important traits, however, was his imagination. He could come up with a lot of ideas, and Roy remembered him coming up with a famous line that went, ‘Ghouls are our friends. They clean up rotten corpses and keep plagues from breaking out.’

He could not say that Kalkstein was a good man, but he was no villain either. The man had a glorious history, like how he made bombs for Jaskier and bombed Dijkstra’s underground treasure room, and how he burst into fireworks and made a sentence in the sky when Eternal Fire’s witch hunter burned him at the stake. The sentence read, ‘Eat my dick, Radovid.’

Radovid was the ruler of Redania, and they had taken over Kaedwen in the east. People feared and worshiped him, but Kalkstein was irreverent. There were a lot of unreliable rumors about him. One example was how he accidentally created a plague maiden while he was researching the Catriona plague on Fyke Isle. Kalkstein was called Alexander back then.

I should try to not cross him if I can. “Alright.” Roy sighed. “How much did you pay him?”

“Oh, I’m afraid it won’t go the way you think it will.” A cunning glint shone in Kalkstein’s eyes. “According to the fifth clause of the third paragraph in the contract, if Berengar fails in his mission, then he will have to pay me ten times the deposit. That’ll be about two thousand crowns. It’s a hefty sum. Are you sure you want to settle it for him?”

Roy cursed silently. “Sorry. We can’t do anything about that, and Berengar won’t pay that much money.” He took a deep breath. “And I think ten times the deposit is unreasonable. It’s usury, and it goes against Vizima’s local laws. It’d be acceptable if it was double the sum of the deposit.”

Kalkstein raised his head up high and shook his head. “I hired a witness in Vizima’s court before we signed the papers, and this is legal. Strictly no discounts. If you aren’t going to pay for him, then stay out of my way.” He tried to go into the shop, but he bumped into Letho’s chest again.

“Can you give us some time? Two days… No, half a day. You can come back tonight.” Roy gritted his teeth. The weapons would be out in two days, and Roy would not have to defend Berengar again. “He’ll talk with you once he’s done with his work.”

“Witchers are all the same. Why should I trust you? He might have escaped by then.” Kalkstein put his hands behind his back and shook his head. “Time is money, and you’re costing me a lot of crowns. I have a lot of work back at the laboratory. I don’t have time to waste. Get out of the way if you aren’t paying.”

“What do you want then? Berengar doesn’t have that kind of money.”

Kalkstein suddenly licked his lips. “Witchers have incredible resistance to acid and poison. Their recovery abilities are off the charts, and they can survive in incredibly harsh climates thanks to their mutation. You’ll make excellent test subjects. If he’s not paying, then he’ll have to sell himself to pay off his debt.”

“Don’t you have a gentler way of doing this?”

“I do.” Kalkstein gave the witchers a mysterious look. “He won’t have to pay anything to me if he finishes his job, but it seems like he’s busy with your request now.” He paused for a moment, and he said, “If you’ll take his place and complete his request, then the debt will be canceled.”

“I knew it! You snooped around before you came and set us up just for this, didn’t you?” Roy gave the weird man a look. He might seem crazy, but he was more meticulous than he looked.

“I won’t force anyone to do anything.” The alchemist puffed his chest, looking all calm.

The witchers exchanged a glance. They had a choice: pay two thousand crowns or complete a request. They chose the latter in the end. Maybe this won’t be a hard request. And Berengar will owe us one if we help him out. “Fine.” Roy heaved a sigh. “What do you need us to do, alchemist?”

“You gentlemen will have to sign a contract of confidentiality before we can talk about the details.”

“Will you do this, Letho? Or should I go?”

Letho looked at the baboon of a man in front of him, searing his face in his mind. “Kid, don’t sign anything but the contract of confidentiality.”

“I know.” Roy was curious about the alchemist’s request, so he left with Kalstein and went to a room in a nearby inn. The alchemist handed him a contract that was chock full of paragraphs and clauses. It was then Roy realized that the contract was not just legally binding; it was magically binding as well.

Magical contracts had spells cast on them, and they would bind the signees through magic. If any clause was broken, they would have to pay a steeper price compared to what they would if they signed regular contracts. It was the same thing with this contract. If the signee were to tell anyone about the content of the request, they would be transformed into a frog and stay that way for a year.

Berengar must have signed this contract before. That’s why he didn’t tell us anything about the request. Turned into a frog? That’s a nightmare. It’s worse than hell.

Roy read through the contract and hesitated for a long time before he slowly signed the contract. Even so, he was not sure if he would take the request. If it was too dangerous, Roy would never do it. He would not put himself at risk.

The contract had two copies. Roy would keep one, and Kalkstein would keep the other.

“Good.” Kalkstein broke into an ugly smile. He was warming up to the witcher before him. “Now, let’s talk business. My request is simple. I need you to get some information for me.”

Roy extended his hand and told Kalkstein to keep talking.

“I need you to infiltrate a laboratory near Foltest Fortress and get an experiment journal for me.”

“Whose laboratory is it?”

“A sorcerer from a foreign land.”

Roy had a weird look on his face, and he refused, “I’m a witcher, not some common thief. Your request is out of the range of my specialty. I’m sorry.”

“No. I mean, yes, you are stealing something.” He coughed and leaned back into the sofa. Kalkstein explained patiently, “But skills don’t matter here. Courage and an iron will do. This laboratory is filled with traps!” Kalkstein sounded displeased. “They’re the work of Azar Javed.”

“Azar Javed?” Roy looked at him. That was the sorcerer the mayor hired after they beat Dagon for Adda. He opened a portal to Cintra for him and Letho. Azar wanted a vial of witcher blood in return, but Roy gave him a vial of mixed blood instead. I wonder if he found anything from the blood I gave him. “He’s Vizima’s royal consultant, isn’t he?” Triss shouldn’t be Foltest’s consultant at this point in time just yet.

“You know him?” Kalkstein asked.

“Met him once. I can’t say I know him, or that he’s my friend.”

“Good. You can’t show mercy in this job.” Kalkstein went into the details. He and Azar were mad scientists living in Vizima. They had the same interests, so they maintained an amicable relationship and exchanged their experiment results once every few days. However, recently, Azar would either show up late or skip the meeting altogether.

Kalkstein shrewdly realized that he was conducting an important experiment, or he might have found a great test subject. Kalkstein wanted in on that, but Azar was adamant on not telling him anything. He shot down a mad scientist who would give everything for his experiments, and Kalkstein could not forgive that.

“Azar Javed’s latest experiment goes against the ethics of scientific research and discussion. He took the wrong path, and as his erstwhile friend, I have the responsibility of correcting his mistakes,” Kalkstein said, looking serious. “But I can’t enter his laboratory myself. I would set his traps off, but witchers are a lot more resilient than most people, making them the perfect candidates for this job.”

“Hey, what kind of logic is that? You want me to steal the fruits of someone’s labor, and you call it an act of justice? The audacity.” Roy wiped the sweat off his forehead. Still, he disliked Azar, since he helped someone invade Kaer Morhen in the future. Getting in his way and ruining his experiment sounded fine for him.

“The operation will start tomorrow. I’ll find an excuse to make him leave his laboratory. You’ll use a scroll to turn yourself into an oriole and get into his laboratory to find his journal.”

“Wait. What’d you say? Are you for real?” Roy had a surprised look on his face. This guy is crazy. He wants to turn me into a bird?

“Don’t worry. It’s perfectly safe.” He gave the witcher an ugly smile. “Orioles are small enough to get past all the traps in the laboratory easily.”

“Hold it. Hold it right there. I am not going to turn myself into some kind of animal. That’s absurd, and I can’t guarantee my own safety,” Roy interrupted. He then said, “You’ll have to change the terms of the contract. You need to pay me more. The reward is not enough as it is right now.”

***

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