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Less than a week...
That's all the time Triss and Yen needed to master our language and start operating with terms more or less fluently. And it was all thanks to Ciri, who was able to teach the Coffin her native tongue. During the training, it literally explained to the girls what everything was called.
"Alright... what can I say..."
Yen was sitting on a lounge chair, looking at our fully assembled group, a feat I had achieved by sending a crew led by Saul to guard the spot where the sorceresses had appeared.
"...only Becca and Panam possess the gift for magic among you."
"Well, damn..."
Judy was clearly disappointed.
"...and here I was dreaming of fireballs and teleports..."
"Don't be upset. Magic exists in all sentient beings. It's just that by 'gift,' Yen means a certain threshold, starting from which it makes sense to teach classical magic. The magic that she and I wield. But there is another school of magic: the Witcher school."
"You mean the Signs?"
Ciri looked at Triss with interest.
"Yes. Yen and I studied this issue back in the day, and I can tell you that Signs are the same spells, only re-worked by mages so that people who have gone through the transformations and have a much lower magical potential can defend themselves. After all, when the Witchers were created, there were significantly more monsters around the world, so they tried to enhance them..."
"Uh-huh, and then they were destroyed..."
Yen just shrugged at Ciri's words.
"...they were no longer needed. Well, that's what people and kings think. In this matter, they're surprisingly thick-headed and believe that since their men can take out a couple of Drowners, and if they have a mage serving as an advisor, they don't need Witchers anymore."
"Uh-huh..."
Ciri was the embodiment of sarcasm.
"...that's why mages are running around the world saving people and killing monsters..."
"And that's another side of the coin... training a mage is much more difficult and expensive than training a Witcher."
Ciri snorted.
"Ciri, don't scoff. You know that Yen and I see many things differently, but I agree with her on this. Let's just calculate: it takes about fifteen years to train one Witcher. Training starts at four or five years old. At ten, they undergo the mutations, and then more training, but a much more intense and specialized one. In fact, all you have to pay for are the mutagens, and they... I'll let you in on a terrible secret now: any mage can create them."
"What?!"
"Yes, Ciri, Triss is right, except she didn't specify that at first, they'll be significantly inferior to the perfect mutagens that were used on Geralt, so the overall enhancement of the body will be forty percent less, but the mortality rate will also be much lower. And you also have to add food to the cost of training. That's basically it... the other costs come when the Witcher is released into the world and has to be given armor and two swords instead of an unsharpened club."
"On the other hand, training a mage requires a simply enormous amount of expensive ingredients. And no, those aren't the ingredients that Witchers brew their compounds with; those are mostly easily accessible but toxic, you can gather them in any forest. Of course, the Witcher will have to drink a detox potion afterward and stay in bed for a day, but otherwise, it won't affect him. But a mage, to achieve results, lacking such a strong body, has to use much rarer herbs... Let's remember the food, the bodies of monsters and people that are also needed for training, and the search for magic-saturated places where, incidentally, there are monsters that need to be eliminated... And the training itself is at least twenty years..."
"Um... so Witchers are just a mass-produced commodity that could be prepared for slaughter?"
Yen grimaced slightly at my question but nodded.
"Crude, but true. What's more, an untrained mage can't do anything, but a Witcher who hasn't undergone the mutation can at least take out a Drowner. So, some of the apprentices could be sent out into the world as early as fifteen, without mutations, which increased the mortality rate during jobs. But a lot more people were saved simply because there were many Witchers around the world, and most of the problems are still monsters that can be dealt with by ordinary trained warriors who just need to know their habits."
"But in any case, in about a hundred years, the institution of Witchers will have to be revived again."
"Huh?"
Ciri stared at Triss, who took over the story from her friend, in shock.
"Why are you so surprised?"
Triss shrugged.
"Well, judging by your friend's look, he understands the reason, and you, if you had paid more attention to theory, would also understand why that would have to be done. And you can still understand it; you just don't have enough data yet."
The girl looked at me.
"Maybe you can explain?"
"A law of nature..."
I shrugged.
"...when one species that occupies a certain niche disappears, another one will take its place. It's a crude and not entirely accurate way of putting it, but it conveys the essence correctly. To put it simply, there were once monsters. They were the most fearsome predators, and people were afraid of them. Witchers were created to fight them, and over time, they killed most of the monsters, and then the Witchers were almost completely destroyed..."
Ciri's eyes widened in shock.
"The Witchers are almost gone, and the monsters are starting to breed again. It was impossible to kill all of them, because many live in areas inaccessible even to a Witcher. You can only get there by air or by portal, but mages usually don't give a damn about those monster enclaves..."
"Exactly..."
Yen took over for the now-silent Ciri.
"...but those enclaves have a limit to how many they can feed, and periodically, streams of monsters spill out of them. And since there are almost no Witchers now, they just scatter around the world. They aren't attacking people much right now, because there's enough ordinary prey for them..."
"But time will pass, and all the territories will be divided, and they will need something to eat. Mass attacks on villages will start again. Not just Drowners—there are enough of them now—but dangerous monsters. And then people will start thinking about creating Witchers again."
"Alright..."
I interrupted Triss, who was about to continue her lecture for Ciri.
"...so it turns out that you can teach us these Witcher Signs, and we can use them in battle?"
"Yes... although we don't know all of them, as you can imagine, we have five Signs in our arsenal..."
Yen answered me.
"And what are those Signs? What can they do?"
"Axii—temporary mind control. Igni—a stream of fire from the fingers. Quen—a shield that prevents damage from being dealt to the user. Aard—basically a telekinetic push. And Somne—a Sign that forces the target to sleep."
"Signs for every occasion..."
I nodded thoughtfully, acknowledging the usefulness of the Signs.
"Exactly."
Triss nodded proudly, confirming that she also wielded those Signs.
"And you know these Signs because you had a romantic relationship with a certain Witcher and simply couldn't help but learn a few things from him?"
Both girls slightly turned up their noses. They weren't easily flustered by hints like that, and I didn't dare to go any further and hint at the possibility of catching not only knowledge but also diseases. They are sorceresses, after all, and they can certainly take care of themselves in that regard.
"I don't understand one thing. Even from your stories and Ciri's stories, I figured out that Geralt is quite the womanizer... how did you manage to build a relationship with him?"
"And what about you?"
Yen twisted her lips into a sarcastic sneer.
"Don't even start..."
I shook my head.
"...my relationships are built on mutual trust and love. My girls know that I don't need anyone else besides them, and I won't run off to prostitutes or try to seduce another girl if I feel the need to scratch my itch while I'm in the city, some distance away from them."
"Yeah, right..."
Triss decided to support Yen's disbelief and nodded at my words.
"Well... actually, I've never seen David go off with anyone else..."
"And I haven't..."
Panam shrugged.
"...Uh-huh, he did gather a harem, of course, so we had to spend some time adjusting to each other, but none of us were strongly against expanding the family to begin with..."
"You're strange... we Sorceresses are used to being possessive... the only ones in our men's lives, the only ones in their hearts, and that's why..."
"And that's why you tolerated all of Geralt's cheating?"
"Well..."
Triss blushed slightly and looked away.
"That's just a thing between Yen and me. Others wouldn't have tolerated it, and the most he could have hoped for was a couple of nights and a breakup."
"Hmm... well, I can understand Yen..."
I looked at the black-haired girl, who immediately frowned and glanced at Ciri.
"Someone has a very loose tongue..."
"You're wrong..."
I shook my head.
"Hmm?"
"She didn't say anything. She just mentioned the Djinn when we were discussing how she could have been bound to the elves. She said that wishing for it could have done it. And when you two first appeared at the dump, we clearly heard your conversation. So..."
I shrugged.
"Sorry..."
Yen looked at Ciri with guilt in her eyes...
"Forget it... let's get back to discussing business..."
Ciri didn't hold a grudge against her... adoptive mother? She just waved her off.
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