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[PR: Ash]

Mayena, at least to Sodden and Brugge, was the stop between those two cities and Temeria’s second biggest city—Maribor. Despite that, Mayena was a lot smaller than Vizima, Ellander, and Cintra. There was a single path in the city, with alleyways branching out all around it, leading to the civilian area. Behind those alleyways were the walls and turrets overseeing the wilderness.

Thanks to its geography, Mayena’s trading scene was quite lively. Shops lined the streets, selling a hundred different kinds of merchandise. Flowers, perfume, necessities, and more. Sellers and merchants happily waved at the onlookers, hoping to gain some sales.

Roy walked around, but there was no sign of Geralt. And so, he went to the hub of information: the inn.

Most inns would be quiet in the morning, but the Slug Inn—the biggest inn in the city center—was merry and rowdy. Dim light swayed, the scent of alcohol filled the air, and the sprightly tune of a lute played out for the patrons.

Roy sat in front of the counter and listened for a while. Drunk patrons wriggled and writhed on the dance floor, their beer bellies swaying rigorously. Despite their best attempts, these people could only manage something that resembled wriggling caterpillars, trying to dance, only to have their feet go in different directions all at once.

Some of the men were holding waitresses in their arms, hiding in the corners of the inn and cracking jokes. The ladies would let out a chuckle and smack the men’s hairy chests and arms. Some men leaned on the windowsill, arms around each other’s shoulders. They looked like death row inmates having their last drink, though they were just dozing off, and their drool fell onto the street outside.

The round tables of the inn were occupied by its many customers. Tan, brooding men—who spoke in an obviously Maribor accent—were complaining about the inflation that had happened lately. Three times in a month! That was what they said. They weren’t making enough to even put food on the table, and for that, they blamed the refugees, whom they claimed to be eating for free.

Another pot-bellied man who obviously came from Cintra bragged about his glorious past to his friend. He was obviously drunk, and he talked about how he had carriages, a beautiful wife, and a healthy son. But all of that was taken from him after the war. Nilfgaard took away his estates, and he was alone. The coins he had with him were given freely to the inns of Mayena. Once he spent his last coin, the soldiers would kick him out of the city, and he would have to live with the refugees like he was one of them, subsisting off of crude food and disgusting water.

A burly Sodden man was downing mugs of dwarven liquor. His face was red, and his eyes were filled with fury. Roy thought he might start a fight at any moment. He cursed the Nilfgaardian troops, claiming that if he had joined the Battle of Sodden Hill, he would’ve kicked those soldiers back to the south and reclaimed Cintra and married the missing princess. Unfortunately, he claimed, he was sleeping during the day of the war. When he woke up, most of Cintra had fallen. The King of Sodden had died, and his nephew—the king of Temeria—would annex Sodden into his kingdom. The man complained further, this time about Foltest. He blamed the king for acting too slowly, wondering why he still hadn’t sent any soldiers to attack Sodden.

***

The inn was filled with people from the northern kingdoms, but they shared the same fate: displacement by war. They were depressed, angry, enraged, and sad, and the inn provided a place for them to vent their feelings.

The overly muscular bouncers who stood at the entrance made sure no one caused any trouble, and all it took was a look from them.

***

The bartender looked at the customer sitting before the counter. He was slender and decked out in leather armor and a pair of sunglasses. Calm, collected, and as handsome as the boy toys kept by the aristocrats. The customer looked deadpan, and the bartender noticed the muscles in his arms. Lean, powerful, and dangerous. This is no ordinary man. “What would it be, guvnor?” he asked again.

“Cherry wine, please,” the lad said. He had a nice voice.

The bartender wiped his hands on his apron and poured the pink cherry wine into a big mug. Then he placed the mug before the witcher, waiting for him to ask a question.

“Anything memorable happened lately?”

“You a merc? Trying to get a job?” The bartender cleaned the bottles on the rack. “Came to the right place. They’re trying to rebuild Sodden after the war, and the merchants are hauling supplies around. They’re looking for bodyguards. If you’d like, I can hook you up with someone.”

Roy stared at the bartender quietly.

“Oh, pardon me. There are a lot of things happening around the world every day, especially Mayena. Sodden ain’t that far away from us, as you know, and it’s the center of all the commotion. Heard all the kings of the north—Foltest, Demavend, Henselt, and the lot—are going to see an emissary from the south soon. That meeting is going to decide the future of this war.” The bartender cleared his throat and refilled Roy’s mug.

“The refugees are going to balloon in numbers, but we can’t take in any more of them. We’ve requested financial aid from the king multiple times. Two days ago, a female corpse was found in an alleyway. She was the daughter of a local merchant, allegedly killed by Sodden immigrants. The merchants’ guild are going to pressure the head of security and find out who the killer is. They wish to put them to death.”

The bartender stopped talking, and he stared at the witcher, requesting more money.

“Another mug, please.” Roy paid him three crowns and ten coppers.

Happily, the bartender tucked the crowns into his apron’s pocket, and he filled Roy’s mug again. “A week ago, a merchant from Outer Rivia abducted Ains, the honorary ambassador. And, perhaps he was very brave or very stupid, but he came back. The soldiers captured him. Took him to the dungeons for interrogation.”

Outer Rivia was the area between Lyria and Rivia and the east side of Sodden.

“Curiously, the merchant had with him a powerful mercenary. A white-haired mutant. He too was captured.”

“A white-haired mutant?” Roy’s heart skipped a beat. I don’t think there are any other witchers with white hair out there except for Geralt. “About six foot two, lean, and had two swords with him?”

The bartender smiled.

“Another.”

The bartender shook his head and raised five fingers. Roy pushed the stool back and stood up, blocking the bodyguards’ line of sight, then he quickly made a Sign. Axii rooted itself in the bartender’s mind, and he answered Roy’s question.

“That mutant is Geralt of Rivia. Obviously came from the same place as the merchant. Must’ve hired him to kidnap the honorary ambassador together. They had nothing to prove their innocence, so they made up a story. Said Ainz was melted. They are accused of kidnapping. Some even said they came from the fallen Cintra. Accused them of being Nilfgaard’s spies. Serious crime, if you ask me. Ainz is one of the food suppliers of this fortress. He’s a big reason a lot of the refugees have something to eat. Now that he’s gone, prices are about to inflate again. As if the people aren’t having it hard enough. The head of security is livid, and he locked them up in the dungeon. It’s right under the tallest tower on the north side of the city.”

Gods, Geralt. Why’d you run into this mess? Couldn’t you focus on finding Ciri? Roy drank some of his wine. You’re a witcher. Why’d you let the soldiers catch you? You could’ve fought back. Or just Axiied them. He looked at the bartender. “How can I get into the dungeon?”

The bartender paused for a moment, and his eyes shone. “Money makes the world go round.”

***

A torch that smelled like charred wood was stabbed into the sconce on the cragged wall, and its light shone on two silhouettes, their shadows dancing on the ground.

The white-haired witcher stirred and woke from his meditation. The pain coming from his body had subsided, and he wiped his face, looking around. The prison opposite his housed two unkempt criminals, breathing quietly. Lying beside Geralt was a ball of flesh covered in tattered robes, blood, and whip marks.

That ball of flesh used to be a pudgy, kindly merchant. It had been but a week since they were sentenced to jail, but already the merchant was on the verge of breaking down. “Still hanging in there, Yurga?” Geralt patted the merchant’s back.

Yurga grunted and woke up. “Ow, my back. Are we still in the dungeon, Geralt?” Yurga rubbed his eyes with his dirt-covered hands. He thought that all this darkness was just a hallucination.

“Yeah, and we’re going to stay here until kingdom come if no one comes to save us. That, or we’ll be burned at the stake,” said Geralt calmly.

“Dammit!” Yurga pushed himself up and leaned on the cold, wet wall. His face was wet, and frustration welled in his beady eyes. “Sorry, Geralt. I dragged you into this. You saved my life, but instead of paying you for your work, I dragged you into this whole mess. There’s no way we can hand Ainz back to them. We’re going to rot in this place.” Yurga held his pale, bloated face and sobbed. Then he held his head and squealed like a pig. “I’ll never see Goldencheeks again. She’s still young. Not even twenty-five, and now she’s going to be a widow! No… no, she might take my wealth and remarry. By the gods, our sons! Nadbor and Sulik are still young, and they’re going to be facing an abusive stepfather in my absence. What should I do?”

Geralt shook his head. How is it possible for someone to have so many emotions that they have to let it out every single day? “Yurga, save your breath.” The White Wolf spat, a metallic taste spreading in his mouth. “It’s going to hurt a lot more if you can’t scream when you get whipped.”

The steel door of the dungeon’s entrance opened by an inch, allowing some light to pour into the darkness. The opening of the door was nothing less than the demon’s summons, and Yurga shivered. “They’re here again. Freya, Melitele, Lebioda, Eternal Fire, gods, help me! Please let me be invincible just this once!”

Sounds of light footsteps closed in, and the pair held their breaths. However, there were no barks of the guards, nor was there any opening of the door. Instead, a chuckle was heard ringing in the air. The light of the torch shone on a familiar figure.

“Roy?” Geralt looked at his grinning friend, and he heaved a long sigh of relief. “How’d you get in here?”

“I have my ways. But I can’t stay for long. Fifteen minutes, that’s it.”

“I knew it.” The White Wolf held the steel bars, and something within him stirred. “You knew I’d get in trouble, so you came to save me.”

“If that’s the angle you want to take, fine by me.” Roy looked at Geralt. He was filthy, smelled like a nekker, and his skin was covered in scabs and scars. Even his hair lost its usual sheen. He chided, “I can’t believe you’d let them capture you without putting up a fight. What were you thinking?”

“You know this man, Geralt?” Yurga quickly squeezed his face against the steel bars, and it almost distorted his face, parting his brows apart. Then the fat merchant grinned sycophantically at Roy. “Can you help us out of here?”

“Slow down, friend. This is Roy, my companion.” Geralt looked at Roy. “You know that Destiny hasn’t been kind to me. She loves to put me through trials, and this is but one of them. I must get through this trial if I wish to find Ciri. Any form of cheating or giving up is going to end with punishment.”

Roy shook his head in disdain. He then turned his gaze to the fat merchant, and he kept his arguments to himself. This… pudgy merchant was more than met the eye. Roy knew him. He was an important figure in Geralt’s search for Ciri. Roy thought that Geralt would never meet this man with the war breaking out early. The butterfly effect might have changed things, but instead, their meeting happened in a different way.

Geralt had a point. Destiny, or to be exact, the Law of Surprise, made sure that Geralt would cross paths with Yurga no matter what. “I’m going to bust you out, but first, I need to know the whole story. What happened?”

***

“Let me explain, Roy.” Yurga straightened out his tattered collar. “I was there for the whole thing.”

“Make it quick, Yurga.”

“One week ago, Mayena’s food supplier and honorary ambassador, Ainz, met with me in the northern woods for a negotiation. He was going to purchase the supplies Rivia and Sodden needed, while I would use my connections in Rivia to get him the food he needed.”

A negotiation in the woods? That was surprising, but Roy let the man talk.

“Negotiations broke down right away. Ainz wanted to purchase moldy grain and infested flour. If we used that to make bread, it would kill whoever ate it. I didn’t even have to guess who would be the ones eating it. The refugees are already poor enough. What Ainz had in mind for them was far more than cruelty.”

Oh, he was going to buy rotten food for the refugees?

“The deal could make me a mountain of coins, but I refused. I would not sell out my conscience for wealth.” Yurga tensed up, his eyes filled with justice, though his chubby face was trembling in an amusing way.

Roy looked at Geralt, and the White Wolf nodded. He had verified this with Axii.

Didn’t expect that from this guy. Roy had another question. But Ainz was Mayena’s honorary ambassador. There’s no reason for him to do something that evil.

“It was on the return trip that all hell broke loose. We were passing through the woods when a blinding flash of red light appeared. It felt like a thousand red candles were lit up at the same time, and their light surrounded the forest.” The merchant had a weird look in his eyes. There was fear… and longing. “That was a red sun. And it shone magnificently.”

And then Roy had a weird look on his face.

“Out of curiosity, I, Brofi, Ainz, and Mateo went into the red light. We searched around for five minutes, but there was nothing to be found. The light seemed to appear out of nowhere. And so we tried to leave.” He paused, staring at the corridor for a while, and then an eerie light glinted in his eyes. He clicked his tongue at the sleeping inmates across them, and he raised his voice. “But Ainz disappeared!”

“He disappeared?”

“Like a melting candle. He was lit by a red fire, burning him up from the inside.”

Is that supposed to be a horror story? Roy looked at Geralt, but the White Wolf nodded.

“I had no idea where the fire came from. It burned and burned, but there was no smoke coming from Ainz. He managed to let out a scream, and then he was burned to cinders and disappeared into thin air. Even his clothes were turned to ash. Not a single strand of his hair was left.”

Roy’s face darkened. He thought this was just a simple missing persons case. He could’ve just used his Witcher Senses to deal with it, but now he knew things were not that simple. This is big. This is nothing I’ve heard before. Red light covering the whole woods and something like a self-combustion. It takes a lot of heat just to burn someone down to ash. Not even the dragons in Skyrim can do that. I don’t think most of the sorcerers in this world can either.

Roy tried to search his memory for any similar case, but there was nothing. This was even more unbelievable than Flynn absorbing the dragon’s soul. The young witcher turned to Geralt. “Yurga could have been high on something. Alcohol, or maybe the drugs the aristocrats love so much. Could’ve been a hallucination.”

“I checked him, but there were no traces of any substance in his body.”

“So you think he’s telling the truth?”

“Yes,” Geralt said. “Though I do not know why that happened.”

“Roy, I don’t mind you calling me ugly or conservative, but do not question my integrity. Businesses are built on that.”

“Shut it. Finish the story.”

“Brofi, Mateo, and I were shaken. Worried that we might be next, we scrambled out of the woods. I was too fat, see, and the rascals left me behind. I was tired, scared, and my muscles felt like they would kill me. When I was passing by a log over a chasm—that was the path I had to take to come back—I slipped and almost fell.” The memory of that filled Yurga’s eyes with pain. “I’m over two hundred pounds heavy, and I was hanging on nothing but a log, a chasm waiting for me beneath. I was like a fish out of water, struggling to breathe. Every moment of that was torture.”

“And Geralt passed by, so he saved you,” Roy guessed.

“Exactly. I was dying, so I promised I’d do anything for him. Then Geralt saved me.” Yurga smiled at the White Wolf and added, “I know what witchers want, and I’d love for any of my sons to be taken under his wing. It’s a chaotic world. Wars happen all the time. If he becomes a witcher, he can probably live longer and better than his old man.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Roy. It was the first time he’d seen someone willing to give their children to witchers.

“But the White Wolf thinks that’s not in line with the Law of Surprise. When he saved me, he did talk about using that Law to get his reward, but there’s no way I’d have another child I don’t know. When I went back home last time, Goldencheeks wasn’t pregnant, and she wouldn’t cheat on me,” said the merchant.

Roy smiled. “Let’s talk about business.”

“I saved him and told him who I really am,” said Geralt. “I went to the woods with him, but the light was already gone, yet my medallion shivered.” Geralt’s eyes shone. “Remnants of some sort of energy lingered there.”

“Tell me more about the forest. The exact location.” A while later, Roy got what he wanted.

“I got saved, but I was nervous. Very nervous, so I went back to the city with Geralt to come up with a way to deal with it. An honorary ambassador just died to supernatural causes. We’d be in trouble if we didn’t come up with a good plan, but the moment we got to the city, a bunch of soldiers surrounded us.”

“Ainz must’ve told his servant what to do if something were to happen to him, and that bastard stirred up this whole mess. Too many people saw me going out of the city with him.” Yurga sighed bitterly. “The disappearance of an ambassador is a scandal, and someone must take responsibility for it. We tried to explain ourselves, but the head of security thought we abducted Ainz, so he sentenced us to prison.”

“I can understand why he did it,” Roy said. “Red lights and mysterious flames that turn people to cinders in moments? That’s unheard of. Not to mention the light is long gone, leaving you with no evidence to prove your innocence. Anyone would think you’re a criminal. A criminal who’d already killed their hostage and burned his remains.” There was no way anyone could find Ainz after his body was burned to cinders.

“We need an opening,” Roy said. “Your servant, Brofi, can prove that the incident was real. He can prove that Ainz did die under those circumstances.”

“That git is hiding gods know where. The soldiers didn’t catch him.” Yurga looked indignant but also glad. “Besides, he’s working for me. Even if he shows up, the soldiers are going to think he’s our accomplice.”

“What about Mateo, then?”

“Missing. The soldiers have no idea where he is, and he was… off to begin with. Looked like he had a breakdown. Wouldn’t stop screaming as he ran away,” said the merchant.

“Tell me what they look like. I’ll search for them,” said Roy. “Ainz’s servant should lend some credibility to your story should he show up.”

***

“No, it won’t change a thing.” Geralt shook his head. “Don’t you get it? The head of security needs to appease the public, especially the refugees. The word of some servants and a merchant would no doubt look like desperate attempts to get out of jail. No one will believe us.”

“You’re dumping a real problem on me right now.” Roy mused for a moment. “So aside from Mateo, we need someone reputable to help you guys. To prove that the light that burned Ainz down did exist.”

Someone who lives in the woods. Someone reputable. And Roy had an idea.

***

Geralt and Yurga noticed Roy muttering something and fell silent.

Then someone at the gate’s staircase shouted, “Your time’s up, kid!”

“A moment, please!” Roy replied, then he told Geralt, “I think I have an idea to get you out of here. Just wait for me. But one question before I leave. Why’d the light only burn Ainz down after he touched it? Why didn’t it burn you, Mateo, or Brofi?”

“That I do not know.” Yurga shook his head. “But it’s not like nothing has changed. I think something inside me is different.”

“How so?” Roy cocked his eyebrow. Aside from minor injuries, Observe showed nothing special about him.

“It’s hard to explain, but my body feels so much lighter than before. It’s like I’ve put down something that’s been weighing down on me.”

“Fine. Okay, so here are the leads I have. Red light in the forest, a burned ambassador, and two escaped servants.” Roy waved his arm and tossed Gwyhyr into the prison. “Keep this hidden. Geralt. If you guys run into something you can’t handle while I’m out investigating, tap the sword three times. I’ll bust you out right away. Your safety comes first. If danger arrives, to hell with the law.”

He tossed two Potions of Minor Healing to Yurga. His back was filled with scabs, and he looked listless. Obviously, he had gone through a lot of torture, and Roy would not let him die just like that. “If the pain gets too unbearable, down a bottle of this.”

The merchant tucked the potion away carefully. He’d always been interested in witcher potions.

“Take care, you two. I have a feeling good news is coming.” And Roy smiled at Geralt. “And perhaps we might see a surprise.”