Envoys, Wineboys

It began in a manner most ordinary, with a notice posted on a board in Velen. The witcher read the notice and set out to see what else he could learn.

If you find yourself wondering why these knights errant seemed stuck in this slipshod backwater hamlet in Velen, I hasten to explain - they had decided to wage war on some local bandits. Though it was a course worthy of knights of the errant variety, Geralt managed to dissuade them from pursuing it. For experience had taught him nature bears no void, and a band of hoodlums cut down to a man would soon be replaced by another, possibly of a yet meaner disposition. And after all, the knights did not have their sovereign's leave to remain in Velen indefinitely.

If you find yourself wondering why these knights errant seemed stuck in this slipshod backwater hamlet in Velen, I hasten to explain - they had decided to wage war on some local bandits. Palmerin, ever eager to resolve crises peacefully, intended to address the robbers, appeal to their sense of decency and thus direct them onto a path of virtue. Geralt expected Palmerin's rhetoric to fall on deaf ears. When the bandits arrived, Palmerin put in a valiant effort, yet ultimately a bloody fight broke out. The witcher assisted the knights from afar to deal with the local rabble. Though this could seem a somewhat unpatriotic act, there is no doubt Geralt's choice was thoroughly justified and that he had taken the moral high ground.

Yet in telling a story, one should never get ahead of oneself. Suffice now to say the knights delivered their message, and the witcher agreed to take on the contract. He then promptly set off for Toussaint in their company to face the Beast that tormented the duchy. And thus the adventure was underway.

But to return to the crux of our tale, at this time Toussaint lay trembling and near-prostrate, rocked by murders as cruel as they were unusual. The killer had thus far eluded the Ducal Guard, which likewise had no notion of his or her identity. So much was unknown that popular opinion held the murderer to be a cunning monster. Thus, Duchess Anna Henrietta had made it a point to summon to her duchy the cleverest and most accomplished of the witchers she knew. The witcher's task would be to track down and slay the murderer, now commonly referred to as the Beast.
For Geralt, the contract stood to be highly lucrative, above all else. Yet it was also an opportunity to revisit the ever charming Toussaint, where the witcher had in the past spent many a beautiful moment in choice company that happened to include yours truly. How deceptive our memories of years long gone can prove! What had promised to be a nostalgic journey into the past would prove a venture rife with events both dramatic and deeply saddening.