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Chapter 37 - Chapter 37: Journal!

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Geralt shook his head. "Just got finished with a contract," he grumbled. "Basilisk. A nasty one. And then some of the local villagers decided they wanted to help themselves to my things, my pay, while I was down in the sewers taking care of it for them. Borch, however," he said, nodding towards the other man with a look of genuine gratitude, "managed to… discourage them, until I arrived."

Harry looked at the dragon-smelling man, Borch, impressed. Not many ordinary men were willing to stand up for a Witcher, especially not against a mob of angry, ungrateful villagers. "Well," Harry said, smiling warmly at the man, "that was incredibly decent of him." Borch just tilted his head in a silent, graceful acknowledgement of the praise.

"Well," Harry said, suddenly pushing himself up from his seat on the rough wooden bench, "it was truly nice catching up with you, Geralt, and a real pleasure meeting your lovely acquaintances. Unfortunately, I find myself terribly busy these days, and I really must be off once more."

"Ah," Borch said, looking genuinely disappointed. "Are you sure, my friend? You must stay! Me and Geralt still haven't even ordered our food yet. You should stay and eat with us, share another drink!"

"Unfortunately," Harry said with a sigh of what sounded like genuine regret, "I simply don't have the time. I wish you all well on your journeys. Geralt," he said, turning to the witcher with a knowing look, "I'm sure we'll run into each other again, sometime down the road. Au Revoir!" And with that, before anyone could even say goodbye, he disappeared with an almost silent, barely perceptible pop.

….

Geralt's POV:

Geralt sat by a crackling fire, staring into the dancing flames. Dandelion, the ever-dramatic bard, was passed out cold on the ground near him, snoring softly, a half-empty bottle of cheap wine still clutched in his hand. 

On the other side of the fire, Yennefer sat, still and silent, engrossed in a thick, leather-bound book.

They had just left the high, windswept mountain peaks where they had encountered the golden dragon, who, as it turned out, was none other than their recent acquaintance, Borch Three Jackdaws. 

That had certainly been a surprise, perhaps even more surprising than when he had first met the enigmatic and impossibly old Harry. 

In the end, he had not slayed the dragon. Instead, he had simply listened to what the golden dragon had to say, and then watched as the idiot dwarves and the even more idiotic king had almost gotten him and Yen killed, after they had refused to honor their end of the deal with their knight, Eyck of Denesle. 

Borch, in his dragon form, had dealt with them all nicely enough, sending them packing with their tails between their legs.

Yennefer hadn't been in a particularly great mood ever since they had left the mountain. She didn't seem quite as upset with him as she had been, but he could tell she was deeply, bitterly disappointed about not getting the dragon parts she had so desperately wanted, the parts she believed could cure her infertility. 

Geralt could understand, he really could. He knew how much Yennefer truly, desperately wanted to have a child of her own at some point. 

He looked at her now, at her beautiful, stern profile silhouetted against the firelight, and against his better judgement, he decided to try and talk to her.

"What are you reading?" Geralt asked, his voice a low rumble, trying to make some simple, harmless conversation.

Yennefer just looked up at him, her violet eyes flashing with their patented, 'you're a complete and utter imbecile' look, a look Geralt was, by now, very, very used to.

"What am I reading?" she repeated, her voice dripping with condescension. "Why, Geralt? What could you possibly get out of knowing? Are you suddenly going to engage me in a deep, intellectual conversation about it? Astound me with your surprising, hidden knowledge on obscure magical personages and ancient texts?"

Geralt just shrugged, unfazed by her sharp tone, and looked at her, waiting patiently for her to answer his simple question. Yennefer looked at him for a long moment, the firelight dancing in her eyes, before she seemed to cool down slightly, a sigh escaping her lips. It was clear she might still not be in the best of moods.

"It is a journal," she said finally, her voice softer now, "from a sorcerer I believe to be the infamous 'Black Mage'."

Geralt's eyebrows furrowed at that. "Who's the Black Mage?" he asked, the name unfamiliar to him.

"The Black Mage," Yennefer explained, her voice taking on a more academic tone, "is a rather infamous, almost legendary, mage who is said to be immortal, or at the very least, incredibly long-lived. He wanders the lands, doing a strange, unpredictable mixture of incredibly helpful and frankly, quite frightening things. He is said to be an unparalleled expert in almost all forms of magic, as well as being extremely, almost supernaturally, elusive."

"He has been a frequent, and often heated, topic of discussion in the magical community for almost a century now. Many thought he was an elf at first, given some of his pro-elven actions and his apparent longevity."

"That theory was disproved, though, as any who have had the rare chance to actually glimpse him have stated that he looks nothing like an elf, nor does he possess a single discernible elven feature."

Geralt thought on that for a moment. "Hm. Sounds impressive," he grunted. "You say you think you may have found his journal. What makes you unsure that it's legitimate?"

"Several things," Yennefer admitted, looking down at the book in her hands with a skeptical expression. "The most prominent being that I bought it off a traveling merchant on his way to Vizima for just a few measly orens. He said he found it in a cave he had used for a camp one night, tucked away in a crevice."

"He knew it was the journal of a mage from having read some of it himself, but he couldn't make heads or tails of most of it. It would have been all too easy for him to have written it himself, to have faked it, just to make a quick coin off a gullible sorceress."

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