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Geralt is lost. He has traveled over this area of the world countless times, his feet padding along the same paths over and over, and yet somehow he has gotten lost. He stops again, retraces his steps, then starts off in a different direction. How is this possible? Velen and the surrounding area have been his working grounds for years. These woods and their monsters know him just as well as he knows them. The landscape itself should have looked familiar, the roll and flow of the earth, each crag and boulder, every stand of trees— he stops again. Even the air here smells different than it should.
Maybe part of the problem is that night has fallen, darkness draping itself around him like a heavy, weighted cloak. He sighs, dilating his pupils to let in as much light as possible, and realizes that he is standing at the base of a grassy hill. It is a slow slope to the top, yet the ground rises quite far into the sky. Something stands at the top of the hill, some sort of structure, but Geralt can’t tell what it is from this distance. His skin tingles. Something is wrong. Never in all of his years traveling this part of the world has he seen anything like this. Instinct screams for him to turn tail and never even mention this to anyone, but his innate curiosity has him stepping forward. He begins to climb.
The hill is bare but for the grass that covers it, and the structure that sits atop it like a crown. The smooth, unmarred surface of the ground is wrong. Even the best, most carefully tended fields in Velen have uneven ground and the occasional rock. The further Geralt climbs, the more unsettled he feels. Goosebumps ripple across his skin. He reaches for his silver sword, sliding it carefully from its sheath, holding it at the ready.
When he reaches the top of the hill, the structure looms before him, much larger than he had originally thought it would be. The shape of it is strange, like a rounded, overturned bowl. It had been constructed of stone bricks, some so old that they had crumbled to dust, yet it still seems to be standing strong. He looks up. If he is judging correctly, three men of his height could have stood on each other’s shoulders, and they still would not have been able to touch the top of the arched entryway.
He listens carefully, but no sounds meet his ears, so he proceeds slowly forward, pulling a torch out of his pack and lighting it with a quick cast of Igni. Better safe than sorry. The faint light from the twinkling stars above is not enough for him to see as well as he wants to.
The structure is clearly a ruin of some sort, but it is only one building; there is no evidence that any other structures had ever stood nearby. Stopping in front of the entrance, Geralt holds the torch aloft and peers inside. While he can’t see or hear anything dangerous, that doesn’t mean it is a good idea to just waltz in, but he can’t really see any other way to do it. He steps inside.
For the briefest moment, his whole body feels as if has been dipped in icy water, then the sensation is gone. He shivers.
“That can’t be good,” he mumbles to himself. The words echo strangely inside the structure, in a way that is not at all natural.
I suppose it’s too late to back out now, he thinks, so he continues forward. Something about the far wall of the structure draws him like a magnet. The surface of the stones had been roughened somehow, but he can’t quite tell why it appears that way, until he draws closer and raises his torch.
Words.
Hundreds, thousands, no, tens of thousands of words had been scrawled across the stones, in more languages than Geralt can count. Shivers run down his spine. He recognizes at least two of the languages, but the others… some are in alphabets he had never seen before, not even in passing, or in any book he had ever read.
“What in the—” he whispers, raising his hand to hover his fingers over one sentence, written in the common tongue he recognized.
I simply wish to know more, it reads. He shudders. Something about the words ring a bell in his head. He looks at another set of words, these written in an alphabet he doesn’t know, yet somehow the words still sound in his head.
Zu’u hind wah tinvaak vahzah.
He doesn’t understand. Another phrase leaps out at him.
Jeg vragwun ilv ath borthan.
Again, he has no idea what the words mean. When he finally finds another phrase in a language he recognizes, he freezes.
Ensh'eass d'yaebl.
Not possible, he thinks distantly, taking a step backward. Is that what this is? Another one of his traps? A trick?
Something shifts above him, a scrape of cloth against stone, and he stumbles back several steps, raising his sword.
“Well, well,” a smooth voice says, sounding faintly surprised. “If it isn’t the one and only Geralt of Rivia. I must admit, I was not exactly expecting you to find your way here.”
Geralt knows that voice well. After all, it has haunted his dreams for the better part of two years. He looks up, already knowing what he will find.
“Gaunter O’Dimm,” he says, feeling the hair on the back of his neck stand on end as his eyes land on the man sitting in the window above him. “What is this place?”
“It’s good to see you again, too,” the man replies easily. “How long has it been? Other than too long, of course.”
“Quite a while,” Geralt says, suddenly nervous. The last time he had seen Gaunter O’Dimm, the man had been glowing with embers, his form melting away into the depths of a pool of water, having been beaten at his own game. It wouldn’t be out of character for the man to do something horrendous to him as payback.
“Relax, witcher,” Gaunter says, sliding from the window and landing gracefully before him. “I haven’t forgotten, but I’m not here to pay you back.”
Remembering that Gaunter O’Dimm never lies, Geralt relaxes a little, but not all the way. It isn’t a good idea to be fully relaxed around this particular man. Geralt had almost forgotten what it feels like to be in Gaunter’s physical presence. Unsettling is probably the simplest way to describe it. He radiates something, some charisma or force, that is almost… muddling.
“To answer your previous question, Geralt, you have managed to wander out of your world. This—” he sweeps his arm wide, indicating the inside of the ruin, “—is a space in limbo. Neither here nor there. I’m not sure how you managed to get here, but now that you’re here, you might have some difficulty getting out.”
A tendril of cold fear climbs up Geralt’s spine.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I can come and go here as I please, but anyone else who arrives here…” he smiles his curved, cat-like smile. “Well, they’re here until the space decides to let them out. Or until they ask for help.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Of course!”
Geralt sighs, and sheaths his sword.
“So, what am I supposed to do? I’d rather not have to stay here forever if I can help it.”
Turning to the wall, Gaunter runs his hand over the scrawled words.
“We could play a game or two of Gwent,” he says. “Just to pass the time. No souls at stake.”
“Uh,” Geralt mumbles. “What would be at stake, then?”
“Let’s play for… experiences. If I win, you will have to live out a relatively short experience of my choosing, but nothing that will physically hurt or alter you. You will simply witness it. If you win, you can either choose something for me to experience, or you can choose for me to send you home, free of charge. How does that sound?”
Dangerous, Geralt thinks. Very dangerous. He mulls it over for a long moment.
“I’ll come out of it whole and undamaged, mentally and physically?” he asks. Gaunter’s eyes glitter.
“I promise.”
“... Alright.”
A table, chairs, and several decks of cards appear in the blink of an eye.
“You may choose your deck if you’d like,” Gaunter says, sitting down in one of the chairs. “It wouldn’t be fun to take away all of your advantages.”
“Can I just use my own?”
This question doesn’t seem to surprise Gaunter, who smiles.
“I did say you may choose your deck,” he says.
The deck of gwent cards that Geralt fishes from his pack is slightly beaten, but clearly well loved. He smoothes a fleck of dirt from the top card, then sits across from the other man.
“Let’s play.”
When Geralt loses the first game, he isn’t at all surprised. He puts his cards down on the table and looks into Gaunter’s dark, sparkling eyes, opening his mouth to ask—
His vision goes black, then slowly returns. Blinking, he looks down at his hands. They are stained red with blood. Panic rises into his throat as he looks around. This place is too familiar. He had died here, on this street, a pitchfork in his gut, but this time, he was alive. The street was nearly empty, the mob having long disappeared. All that remained was two lone bodies, lying broken and bloodied on the stones. His legs push him forward against his will. He doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to see—
And then he looks down into the vacant, wide-eyed faces of two people that mean the world to him, their fierce, scarred faces frozen in masks of fear and horrible, heartbreaking despair.
The vision dispels, and he is left staring down at a card-strewn table. He takes a breath, then gathers his deck, shuffles the cards, and sets it down again.
“Interesting,” Gaunter says, sounding intrigued. “How many times have you told someone that mutations stripped you of all emotions, Geralt?”
“Dunno,” the witcher replies absently, busy trying to shove the images of Eskel’s and Lambert’s dead faces out of his head. “It’s what people expect. No reason to let them down.”
“Or to show weakness.”
Geralt doesn’t respond to that. He tucks a loose strand of white hair behind one ear, and says,
“Again.”
The second loss fills him with a vague sense of anxiety. He barely has time to lower his hand before his eyes darken.
This time, when his vision returns, he feels his stomach clench. He stands at the base of a stone tower, staring intently through an arched doorway. Light glows in the small room beyond, shifting and flickering like fire. His throat is tight with fear.
He knows this place, knows what happens next, or what should happen next, yet when the light flashes brightly, then vanishes, no one steps out of the arched doorway. No young woman with bright green eyes and ashen hair stumbles down the stairs and into his arms with a quiet sob of relief. Only silence presses against his ears. Ciri has failed.
This time he can’t help it. When the vision disappears, he pushes himself away from the table to pace back and forth. Ciri is safe. She had defeated the white frost years before. His daughter is alive, warm, and happy.
“You narrowly escaped that fate,” a voice says behind him. He turns slowly to meet Gaunter’s gaze. The man looks curious, his eyes locked on Geralt’s face.
“One or two wrong moves on your part, and she would have failed. The smallest decision, the wrong words at a crucial moment…” Gaunter pauses. “It could have all gone wrong. I’ve seen it happen, you know.”
When Geralt doesn’t reply, he continues.
“Time is a fascinating thing. With every tiny possibility for change comes infinite different options for the outcome of that change, each carrying their own version of the future. A timeline exists where your beloved Cirilla fails, and where you die because of it. Isn’t that remarkable?”
“Why are you telling me this?” Geralt mutters. “All that matters is what actually happened.”
“Oh, that’s what matters to you, maybe. Would you like to play again?”
Geralt sits down again and picks up his cards, feeling tired. He is fairly certain that Gaunter knows that he sees similar things in his nightmares all the time. These visions, while deeply upsetting, aren’t at all new to him.
They play again and again, and Geralt continues to lose. Again and again, he is forced to watch his loved ones die in increasingly awful ways, yet for some reason, the worse it becomes, the more distant it feels. He’s seen this so many times in his nightmares so often, that now, it has almost become routine.
“I’m a bit surprised by your reactions to this,” Gaunter finally says, lowering his hand of cards after beating Geralt yet again.
“Why’s that?” Geralt asks absently. He isn’t really interested in hearing the reasoning behind the statement, still distracted by the vision he had just witnessed a few minutes before. He had watched his own hands wield a sword that had killed Ciri, cutting her down without mercy.
“You’re clearly upset by seeing these things, that’s plain to see. At the same time…” Gaunter watches him for a long moment, then says,
“Perhaps that is simply not the reaction I am interested in seeing.”
What is that supposed to mean? Geralt tried to ask, but his eyes have gone dark once again.
When his vision clears, he is lying in bed with a woman, his arms wrapped around her warm body, his face buried in her fragrant black curls.
“Love you, Yen,” he mumbles.
“Mmm.”
He opens his eyes again to see Gaunter watching him curiously. Pain has bloomed in his chest, as the vision has poked a wound in his heart that is not yet completely healed.
“That’s a bit closer,” the man says. “Nearly there.”
“Why are you doing this, again?”
The question escapes Geralt before he has a chance to squash it down. It sounds almost petulant, and he regrets it as soon as it leaves his lips.
A delighted smile spreads across Gaunter’s mouth.
“To pass the time, of course,” he says.
“Hm.”
“Another round?”
“...Sure.”
And Geralt loses again.
You think I’d get used to the feeling, he thinks as darkness clouds his gaze, but I haven’t.
This time, when his eyes clear, he is sitting next to a bonfire, a tankard of something strong-smelling in his hand. He is warm and dry. An arm tucks around his waist, and he turns to see Ciri grinning up at him.
"Aren’t you gonna clap for Dandelion? He just sang your favorite song," she says. He chuckles and slaps his hand on his thigh.
"That one never gets old," he replies, feeling light.
"Indeed," someone on his other side agrees. He looks and finds Regis sitting beside him, smiling happily, not bothering to hide his pointed teeth.
When he looks to Regis’ side, he sees Eskel, then Lambert. The longer he casts around, the more friendly faces he sees, some the faces of friends that he hadn’t seen in decades.
"Close your mouth, boy, or you’ll start catching flies," Vesemir calls from across the fire, making Ciri laugh. Geralt does as he’s told. When Dandelion stands up on a bench and demands complete attention for his next number, Geralt is happy just to be quiet and listen, surrounded by his friends and family.
The vision fades, leaving Geralt with a warmth inside him that he hasn’t felt in a long time. He meets Gaunter’s eyes once more, and is startled to see something very human in them, something almost… almost soft.
“Again?” the man asks without taunts or explanations.
This time, when the final round is over, Geralt realizes that he has won.
“You let me win?” he asks, incredulous. Gaunter snorts.
“Why would I do that? Now, you can either make me experience something, or I can send you home. What will it be?”
For a long moment, Geralt stares at the man. If Gaunter is telling the truth, he will be able to leave this place at some point without the man’s help. Though asking to be sent back now would ensure it happens quickly, Geralt is being offered an opportunity here, one he’s going to take.
“Alright,” he says slowly. “How do I pick what experience I want you to have?”
Smiling, Gaunter taps his temple with a single finger.
“You just need to imagine it.”
Geralt thinks hard. This is probably a once in a lifetime chance for him to make some sort of impression on this man, this... entity. What could possibly leave a lasting mark of any sort?
He closes his eyes, and begins to imagine the scene. It doesn’t take him long to spin the picture into his mind, after all, he had just been there. Now, when he sits by the bonfire, between his daughter and a close friend, surrounded by people who are important to him… and Gaunter is there. He sits on the other side of Ciri, companionably, as if they know each other well, holding a tankard of whatever alcohol they are all sharing. He laughs along with everyone when Vesemir tells Geralt to close his mouth, and when Dandelion begins to strum his lute, he leans on his hands and watches the troubadour with rapt attention, feeling the joy and pleasure they all feel from the music, and from the company.
When Geralt opens his eyes once more, the image vanishing from behind his eyelids, Gaunter is standing over by the wall, staring thoughtfully at the words scrawled there.
“That was very interesting,” he says, his voice quiet. “Thank you for sharing.”
“No problem.” Geralt pushes himself up, feeling strange, and walks over to the man. He stands there, his body light, his mind buoyed by the joy of seeing his friends, and wonders what Gaunter is thinking. Had Geralt’s joy, his happiness in that moment, actually touched the man?
Gaunter turns to him, a strange look in his dark eyes, a smile curving his lips.
“One day you’ll have to tell me why you showed me that specific scene. I’d be very interested in your reasoning. But until then,” he waves his hand at the stones, “would you like to write a wish down on this wall? I might be feeling generous…”
Geralt looks down into the man’s sparkling gaze and snorts.
“In your dreams, Gaunter.”
Light filters through Geralt’s eyelids. He sits up, opening his eyes, and looks around. These are the woods he knows. Inhaling, the familiar scents filter into his brain, damp earth, leaf litter, and the ever-present, faint stink of Velen itself. He sighs in relief, then flops back down onto the ground.
“What happened last night?” he mumbles. A horse nickers beside him. “Yeah?”
Roach nuzzles his face, making him chuckle.
“It could have been a dream,” he says, sitting up again, “but it felt just a bit too real.”
Something is in his hand. He looks down, surprised, and finds… a Gwent card. As he watches, the suit on the back changes from the monster symbol, to the Nilfgaardian sun, to the Skelligan ship, then to the Temerian lily. Deeply unsettled, Geralt flips the card over, and swallows.
Gaunter O’Dimm stares up at him from the card face, his dark eyes managing to twinkle despite being printed on paper. Later, Geralt dismisses the notion as lack of proper sleep, but in the moment, he swears that he sees one of those twinkling eyes wink.