Fen Hythe was not what Geralt expected.
He had imagined a fortified manor, perhaps a stone keep with a palisade, something grim and functional to match the lord's brutal pragmatism. What he found, after two days riding through lands that grew progressively more ordered and less wild, was an estate of unsettling charm.
The manor house was built of pale limestone, its lines elegant and modern, with large windows that spoke of confidence and wealth. It overlooked a manicured park that sloped down to a serene, artificial lake. Neatly hedged gardens, dormant now in the late autumn chill, displayed geometric precision. It was a portrait of enlightened nobility, a far cry from the sucking, death-ridden fens of Doln.
The contrast was a statement in itself. This was de Ruyter's world: controlled, cultivated, beautiful. The Murkwold and its people were an inconvenient smudge on the periphery, to be managed, or if necessary, erased.
Geralt didn't approach the main gate. A witcher at the front door would be turned away, or worse, detained. Lords like de Ruyter preferred their problems to come neatly packaged with clear solutions, not in the form of white-haired mutants carrying accusations.
He circled the estate from a distance, his yellow eyes missing nothing. The home farm was prosperous, the barns stout and full. Guards patrolled, but their pace was leisurely, their armor polished for show rather than war. This was not a place expecting violence. It was a place that administered it from a distance.
His destination was the source of the faint, but distinct, tang on the air—a tang that resonated with the memory of the barrow. South of the main house, tucked behind a screen of cypress trees, stood a long, low building of newer construction. Its chimney, unlike those of the manor, was stout and industrial, and even from here, Geralt's enhanced hearing caught the faint thump-thump of a hydraulic press. A workshop.
He waited until full dark, when the moon was shrouded by high, thin cloud. Dressed in dark, soft leathers, he became a shadow among shadows. The guards' routines were predictable. He slipped over a low wall, crossed a frosted kitchen garden, and melted into the lee of the workshop.
The chemical smell was stronger here, underpinned by the sterile odor of distilled alcohol and something coppery. He found a high, barred window, the glass thick and greenish. Inside, all was dark and still. No night work, then. Good.
The lock on the side door was a heavy, intricate thing—meant to deter curious servants, not a witcher trained in Kaer Morhen's halls. A focused pulse of Aard, precisely tuned, shattered the internal mechanism with a muffled crack. He slipped inside, closing the door silently behind him.
For a moment, he stood still, letting his eyes adjust and his medallion guide him. The hum was strong here, a discordant vibration that spoke of sustained, powerful chaos. He risked a small, whispered Igni, a flame no larger than a candle, cupped in his palm.
The workshop was a temple to a darker science than Aldous's chaotic sanctuary. Here, everything was orderly, cold, and efficient. Gleaming brass instruments lined shelves. Glass pipes and retorts were arranged in complex, silent assemblies on spotless slate tables. Ledgers were bound in identical black leather, spines precisely aligned. In the center of the room stood a heavy steel table, stained with dark, unidentifiable residues and fitted with thick leather restraints.
This was not the lab of a curious scholar. This was a production facility.
Geralt moved to the ledgers. He opened the top one. The handwriting was a model of bureaucratic clarity, each entry dated and itemized.
*Project: Sentinel Series. Subject Gamma-7. Kikimora base. Injection of Alba Corpus catalyst, 12 drams. Followed by Sylvian Mutagen, Batch 4. Agitation noted. Physical transformation begins at 3:47 mark.*
He turned the page. A sketched diagram showed a kikimora, with precise annotations noting where chitinous plates were to be encouraged, where limb ligaments were to be reinforced. It was a blueprint.
Day 3. Aggression levels unacceptable. Cognitive function degraded to 17% of baseline. Territorial imperative maximized. Subject rejects command pheromones. Termination protocol advised.
*Day 4. Subject Gamma-7 escaped containment. Presumed lost to Murkwold sector 3. Project conclusion: Failure. Sentinel Series deemed unfit for purpose. Recommend focus on Predator Series.*
Geralt's blood ran cold. Presumed lost to Murkwold sector 3. That was Doln. The creature he'd killed wasn't just a failed experiment; it was a written-off liability, escaped into a sector designated by number. The people there were just coordinates.
He flipped to the next ledger. Project: Predator Series. The notes were more recent, the handwriting tinged with excitement.
… utilizing a higher-order base subject promises greater stability. Acquired a live noonwraith specimen from the Temesian ruins. Its ectoplasmic core provides a malleable matrix for the Alba Corpus. Goal: To instill target-specific aggression, allowing for directed application against…
The notes cut off, as if the writer thought better of committing the ultimate purpose to paper. But the implication was clear. De Ruyter wasn't just making swamp guards. He was trying to build assassins. Specters that could be sent against specific targets, leaving no trace but madness and death.
A sound. Faint. From the back of the workshop.
Geralt extinguished his flame, plunging the room into darkness deeper than the night outside. He crouched, every sense straining. It wasn't the click of a lock or the tread of a guard. It was a soft, wet, rhythmic sound. A drip. But it was too thick, too slow.
He crept forward, past the steel table. A door, reinforced with iron bands, stood slightly ajar. From within leaked a cold so profound it made the air ache, and a smell of grave dirt and bitter almonds. His medallion trembled violently on its chain.
He pushed the door open an inch further.
The room was a cell. The walls were inscribed with shimmering, damp glyphs—confinement sigils, glowing with a sickly yellow light. In the center, suspended in a cage of etched silver wires, was a shape. It was vaguely feminine, a swirl of tattered grey and white, like mist caught in a dead willow. Its face was a pale oval, featureless save for two dark, empty holes where eyes should be. A noonwraith. But not as nature made it.
Threaded through its ephemeral form were pulsing, vein-like strands of a violent, chemical blue—the Alba Corpus. The creature twisted slowly in its prison, its silent mouth open in a perpetual scream. From its outstretched, translucent hand, a single, gelid drop of ectoplasm condensed and fell with that thick, slow plip into a leaden bowl below.
This was the "higher-order base subject." It was being infused, poisoned, transformed. Geralt watched the blue strands pulse, like a parasitic heart, trying to rewrite the specter's essence of sorrow and betrayal into something that could be aimed.
He knew he should destroy it. It was an abomination, its existence a torment. A single silver-tipped bolt, a quick Quen sign for protection, and a dose of Specter oil could end it. But doing so would trigger every alarm sigil in the room. His investigation would be over, and de Ruyter would be forewarned.
As he wrestled with the choice, a new sound reached him—the crunch of gravel under a boot, approaching the workshop door. Voices.
"… assure you, my lord, the binding process is almost complete. The wraith's will is nearly broken. Another day of infusion, and it will be receptive to the targeting parameters."
The voice was oily, ingratiating, sharp with intellect. The alchemist.
"It had better be, Mastic." The reply was a baritone, crisp with authority and impatience. Lord de Ruyter. "The situation with the Viscount is becoming tiresome. I need a resolution that cannot be traced to my door."
"Of course, my lord. A tragic haunting, a family curse revisited… such a pity. It will be as you command."
Geralt melted back from the cell door, his mind racing. He needed to be gone, now. But the main entrance was blocked. His eyes scanned the workshop in the faint glyph-light leaking from the cell. Above the steel table, a skylight—a narrow pane of glass set in the roof for ventilation.
The key turned in the ruined lock of the outer door. The mechanism groaned, stuck.
"What's this? The lock is damaged!"
"Damn it all! Guards!"
Geralt didn't hesitate. He leapt onto the steel table, ignoring the flare of pain in his wounded shoulder. He jumped, catching the edge of a roof beam. With a grunt, he pulled himself up, his boots scrambling for purchase. Below, the workshop door burst open. Lantern light flooded the sterile space.
"Check the cell! Quickly!"
Geralt braced his feet against the beam, and with all his mutated strength, punched upward. The skylight shattered outward with a crash of glass and wood. He hauled himself through the ragged opening, shards tearing at his clothes and skin. Cold night air hit his face.
Shouts erupted below. "The roof! He's on the roof!"
An arrow whistled past his ear, embedding itself in a roof tile. Geralt ran, his footing sure on the steep pitch. He reached the edge and jumped, landing in a roll on the soft earth of the cypress grove. He was up and running before the guards had even rounded the building.
He didn't stop until he was deep in the woods surrounding the estate, the shouts and alarm bells fading behind him. He leaned against a gnarled oak, his breath pluming in the cold air, his heart a drum in his chest. He had what he needed: proof, not just of negligence, but of active, malicious intent. De Ruyter was manufacturing supernatural weapons for political assassination.
But proof for whom? A magistrate would see the ledgers as the property of a lord, his experiments perhaps unorthodox, but within his rights. The wraith? A dangerous creature humanely contained for study. Geralt's word, his breaking and entering, would be the only crime they'd acknowledge.
He looked back toward the distant, elegant lights of Fen Hythe. The lord was not just a petty tyrant; he was a nascent warlord using forbidden arts to clear his land and kill his rivals. And Geralt had just become a loose end.
The Path had led him into the viper's nest, not as an exterminator, but as a witness. He couldn't kill de Ruyter. That would make him a kingslayer, hunted to the ends of the Continent. He couldn't expose him without reputable allies he did not have.
There was only one option left, a path more dangerous than any contract. He had to undermine the work. He had to find the source of the Alba Corpus catalyst and break the chain. And he had to protect the Viscount—whoever that was—from becoming the first victim of de Ruyter's Predator Series.
As he made his way back to where Roach was hidden, a new thought chilled him. The alchemist, Mastic, had recognized the broken lock instantly. He would know someone had been inside. He would check the ledgers. He would check the wraith.
And he would know exactly what the intruder had seen.
The hunt was no longer one-sided. The wolf was in the garden, and the gardeners had just been alerted. Geralt of Rivia, covered in the grime of shattered glass and moral certainty, mounted his horse and turned her head north, toward Temesia. He needed to understand the wraith's origin, to find a weakness in the chain before the perfected predator was unleashed.
Behind him, Fen Hythe slept peacefully under the cold stars, its beauty a perfect lie.