The story of The Witcher 3

While seeking Yennefer, his friend and lover of the past, Geralt neared the village of White Orchard. The sorceress seemed just a few steps ahead, but remained elusive.

Finally, with the help of the Nilfgaardian garrison commander, Geralt learned that Yen was, in fact, in nearby Vizima.

Geralt and Yennefer were reunited, and Geralt was content. But this was not the most important thing to happen to him in Vizima. The witcher also learned that Cirilla, his one-time ward, had returned from her long voyage. What's more, she was in danger. The witcher was to seek and find Cirilla - at the emperor's command and Yennefer's behest.

The witcher's contact in Velen was to be Hendrik, the emperor's spy, operating incognito in the war-ravaged land. The agent's mission - to gather intelligence about Ciri.

Yet Geralt reached Hendrik too late - the Wild Hunt had gotten to him first. He found only the spy's corpse, though the wraith riders had failed to find his notes. From them the witcher learned that Ciri had been a guest of the local warlord, the Bloody Baron, and that she had quarreled with a witch.

While searching for the witch Ciri had quarelled with, Geralt ran into an old friend - Keira Metz. The sorceress told the witcher about a masked mage with a hideout, where Ciri was supposed to have hidden. The witcher set off for the hideout with Keira in tow.

Ciri had, in fact, never reached the elven mage – yet the Wild Hunt had. The ghostly retinue was one step ahead of Geralt - or so it seemed. Geralt felt that all was lost, until Keira gave him a new lead - the Crones of Crookback Bog.

While wandering through Crookback Bog, Ciri had happened on the sinister Crones. The monstrous sisters took her in, then wavered, unsure if they should eat the young woman or surrender her to the Wild Hunt. Ciri escaped before they could decide. Pursued by one of the Hunt's spectral riders, she had fled into the swamp. There, Geralt lost her trail again. He now needed a new lead.

Exhausted and wounded, Ciri collapsed in the swamp. Some peasants then found her and took her to the baron, Velen's self-appointed ruler at the time. The warlord took the young woman in, had her nursed back to full health, then sent her on her way to Novigrad.

As the emperor's spies told it, Ciri had reached Novigrad. No lone attempt to find her in the North's largest city could every make sense. But Geralt had friends he could count on. The witcher decided to contact Triss Merigold.

Triss could not help Geralt. Yet she did direct him to Corinne Tilly – an oneiromancer who specialized in finding lost and missing souls.

Guided by Corinne Tilly, the witcher had a dream. In it, Ciri and I, Dandelion, were reunited. Geralt now knew that to find Ciri he would first need to find his dearest and oldest friend.

But this was hardly simple. As the witcher soon learned, I'd fallen afoul of Novigrad's underworld bosses and disappeared.

Yet Geralt finally discovered that I was imprisoned in the dungeon of the Temple Guard.

Geralt and his friends finally managed to free yours truly. Good thing, too, for I did, in fact, know what had happened to Ciri. Sadly, she was no longer in Novigrad. Pursued by a swarm of bandits, then cornered by the Temple Guard, she had disappeared in a flash of light and a gust of warmth. Where to? This I did not know.

As Yennefer of Vengerberg told it, there had been a magic explosion in Skellige. It had destroyed a vast swathe of primeval forest and was related somehow to Ciri's reappearance. Geralt set out for the Isles to join the sorceress and seek further clues of Ciri's whereabouts.

As it turned out, the druid Ermion had no intention of letting the sorceress examine the destroyed woods. Geralt and Yennefer sought out Jarl Crach an Craite, who helped them break down the druid's resolve.

Yennefer's suspicions proved true - Ciri had indeed appeared in Skellige. She had arrived from another world, together with a masked mage. She and the mage had then fought the Wild Hunt, before fleeing through portals that carried them to Velen.

There, one trail ended and another began. A long time later the Wild Hunt had reappeared on the isle of Hindarsfjall. This could mean Ciri had returned to Skellige once more.

On Hindarsfjall Geralt and Yennefer learned Ciri had returned to the Isles indeed. She'd rejoined her friend, the masked mage. They had boarded a boat and sailed off in an unknown direction. The boat had returned, one passenger on board - a creature as mindless as it was hideous.

One of the Skelligan jarls had captured the poor beast, then sold it to a merchant from Novigrad.

His long search for Ciri led Geralt to conclude that Uma, the ugliest man alive, the victim of a curse, was the key to finding the young woman. Geralt needed to lift the curse, so he took Uma to the home of the world's greatest specialists on dark spells - to the witchers' fortress of Kaer Morhen.

The curse that held Uma proved a difficult one to lift, but Yennefer and the witchers managed. The ugliest man alive revealed himself to be not a man, but an elf, and an elven Sage at that. Avallac’h – for this was his name – was the elven mage who had helped Ciri flee the Hunt, and then hidden her away on the Isle of Mists.

On the Isle of Mists, where the elven mage had concealed her, Geralt found Ciri at last. They could not celebrate their reunion, for the Wild Hunt descended on them. They fled, Ciri teleporting them both to Kaer Morhen, where their friends awaited.

Insistent in its pursuit of the woman witcher, the Wild Hunt arrived at Kaer Morhen soon after. A great battle ensued, and the defenders of the fortress might all have perished had Ciri not demonstrated her magic powers. So sudden and violent was her outburst that the Wild Hunt was forced to withdraw. The battle was won, the war had only started.

After the battle of Kaer Morhen, while the defenders licked their wounds and mourned their losses, Ciri began to plan her revenge. She woke Geralt one night and urged him to come with her to Velen. She new she would find Imlerith there, atop Bald Mountain. She had decided he had to die.

The plan proved a sound one. On Bald Mountain Geralt and Ciri killed Imlerith and two of the Crones. Spurred by the success, they decided to challenge Eredin himself.

Geralt needed to face Eredin, but could only hope to beat him with the help of friends. The Wild Hunt would only be defeated with magic of the extraordinarily powerful kind. So Triss and Yen set out to reassemble the Lodge of Sorceresses. Avallac'h, too, began to lay plans of his own.

The elven Sage decided to erode the King of the Hunt's support in his own realm. With Geralt in tow, he ventured through several worlds to the city of Tir nà Lia, where they found Eredin's viceroy, Ge'els.

Ge’els had been a loyal subject of the Alder Folk's previous king. When he learned Eredin was a regicide, he agreed to help Avallac'h and Geralt defeat the usurper.

The King of the Wild Hunt sailed aboard Naglfar, a mammoth longship that traveled between worlds. Advised by Ge’els to do so, the witcher set out to find the Sunstone - an artifact needed to draw Eredin into a trap.

Using the Sunstone, the sorceresses of the Lodge summoned the Naglfar to a bay along the shore of Undvik Isle. Thus began the last, decisive battle against the Hunt.

In the clash, Geralt killed Eredin, freeing Ciri of the Hunt. But in dying, Eredin named Avallac'h the young woman's true threat and traitor.

The King of the Wild Hunt lay defeated. As to Ciri with her extraordinary gift, her story was hardly done. The sorceresses helped the witcher establish Ciri's and Avallac’h's whereabouts - they were somewhere on Undvik. Geralt and Yennefer set out together to find them.

Eredin's last words, however, proved a lie. Avallac’h had not abducted Ciri, he was her mentor. They had gone to find a portal that had opened within Tor Gvalch'ca, Falka's Tower. Ciri entered the tower. She was to use her powers to end a danger once and for all, to save the worlds from eradication in the grips of the White Frost.