Well Hello There Fellow Gamers And Hivers!

In the previous episode of The Witcher 3 Saga I lifted the curse from Anna, Tamara's mother and The Baron's wife. This was to no avail since the crones tricked and deceived us, if the curse was lifted Anna would die and there was nothing else we could do for her other then comfort her at the end.

After the whole incident of the Woodland Beast and Anna's death The Baron unfortunately took his own life as well, must be he took a harder knock with all of it than anyone really knew. I wish things could have been much different since The Baron had a huge change of character and I felt him to be of much value.

It is what it is though.

Another Woodland Beast?

This can simply not be true, I've killed the Woodland Beast set loose by The Crones I doubt there is more in this area. It can not be.

I got the contract from a guard stationed at the closed bridge leading out of the area, it might be that the Woodland Beast I killed earlier could have something to do with this, but then I'll be getting rewarded for a job that's already done.

Fantastic.

On my way down to where the supposed carts of supplies were attacked I came down a small run over village with a wild dog barking ferociously, almost as if it trapped someone inside the beaten and broken down house.

Of-course I love myself a deeper investigation and after killing the wild dog I noticed that someone was already busy grilling another slaughtered dog.

Must have been more than hungry, but what or who I found I would have never believed.

The kids from the swamps! Those that were "caught" by The Crones.

Remember some episodes back I released the Black Stallion and he promised to set them free. Seems like he kept that promise!

I would never have thought to even see them again, well I was under the notion that the Black Stallion might be taking care of them somehow. How though he's a frikkin horse.

Neither would I have thought that four small children would be able to hunt down and kill a wild dog.

But they did!

I had two options, the first was give them some food or the second was give them some coin. The coin might have stretched them far longer than the food would have but they needed food more than coin now.

It's been a week since they last ate, food might give them the strength to go on and seek a better life. Far away from this wretched war zone.

I left them be as they all huddled up around the camp fire.

I found "The Woodland Beast" now so beasty as I thought it might be, but they were ferocious and wild! This must have been the hardest battle I've fought since starting on my journey. It was more dancing around avoiding them so that I could throw Quen on my self for extra protection! Even that didn't really work that great.

What bothered me was the fact that these Alghouls were able to heal themselves making the battle even harder, and fuck there were only two of them. Imagine running into a horde of them! Wait no I don't want that..not yet at-least.

They were ugly creatures, abominations from outerworlds! But I had to deal with them, a witcher never says no to coin.

I didn't dare engage on them without the Quen shield and even when I had it on they slashed through it with one hit and then they had a area damage as well which damaged the shield before I could even strike back.

I'd consider myself lucky since I barely manages to cut them down before they had the better of me!

After managing to kill the Alghouls I was left to freely do some investigation around the site which the wagons were attacked.

It appears that the clawing and gnawing wounds were inflicted after they died, they were already dead when the alghouls found them! What could have possibly done this?

Certainly no beast or monster, they don't steal warring equipment. That they would have left behind for sure, this was done by a humanoid, must be ambushing parties and such.

Why does there always have to be some swarming sort of creature in the way of me doing my business, I swear I attract these things by just being in existence!

Well it's gold to be claimed, killing them and then gutting and selling their internals. I can't really complain now can I!

After killing the drowners that blocked me from crossing the river it didn't take very long before I ran into some elves causing quite a stir in the woods.

They forcefully stopped me and asked what I was doing there... As if no one is allowed to go out and about for a stroll. I told them I wanted to see their commander and he didn't refuse me oddly enough he had one request and that was for me to remove my weapons.

Now to that I objected and they didn't seem to like it very much!

And so a fury of bolts was unleashed upon me!

Well we can safely assume that these elves never knew what they were getting themselves in for or perhaps they thought their numbers would scare me off.

Laughs, a withcer doesn't scare that easily now does he.

I have to admit I tricked them and good at that aswell. I went to the nearby village just further down the hill and took a little nap and by the time I came running at them they must have forgotten all of who I was.

I got the first slash in and that was the slash that counted the most. They didn't even have time to raise their swords at all!

Killing them was easier than I thought. After that I just needed to pickup the squirrels tail and take that back to the guard stationed at the bridge who gave me the contract.

Then it's all done and dusted for, I can claim my gold crowns and move on with my journey.

On my way back to hand off the squirrels tail I went past the hut where I found the kids. But this time I noticed that they were no where to be seen.

This scares me somewhat, I really hope they found some better place to hideout, someplace that is safer... away from the frontline.

I really hope so.

---

Dated 21/05/2023

To everyone who made it this far into my post Thank you for the read and the support.

If you found this entertaining or educational please consider a re-blog and up-vote.

Most of all please leave a input in the comments below, whether is good or bad critic I would like to know, whether its your opinion or your way of doing things in a different manner I would like.

_{Connecting the people of #HIVE across South Africa. #hive}