[Please note: I am playing this game for the first time, so if anyone feels like replying in here please NO SPOILERS!]
"Had you known this would happen, would you have chosen differently?"
At the time all I could think was,
you daft old man, what a strange question to ask someone who has saved your life. I said 'no', of course. It was the right choice to go with Tess. Leo's death is not on my hands or conscience.
But this? What animals humans are.
I have begun this journal in order to help retain my bearings. I don't know if it will help, I can only hope.
According to those I have met I am Geralt of Rivia. I am a witcher and an amnesiac. I am tracking those who stole equipment from the laboratory of my friends. We spread wide in our search. I was sent south and have come to Vizima. I have picked up a track and I am attempting to follow the path by pursuing the men of Salamandra - those who wear the symbol of the lizard.
This is all I know of myself and of this world, but I am learning more with each passing day.
What fucking animals humans are.
I have gained a pass to enter the city, allowing me an exception to the quarantine currently in effect. I was to gain it by killing the beast that was terrorising the village outside the city walls. In the end I picked it up from a dead man's corpse. What beasts have I killed, and what remain? In chasing the beast I ended up killing most of the local population. In the end the beast was only terrorising itself. But I killed it also. I guess mercy is also a kindness...
Those I did not kill the ghouls have taken, or they have fled. The witch, Abigail, is one who fled. I do not know if I should have let her.
Had I know this would happen, would I have chosen differently?
I should avoid asking myself questions like these. I am here to recover the property stolen from me, not to mourn the deaths of rapists, murderers and dictators.
Perhaps I should have killed Abigail too. I am not sure. It seems she used her sorcery to force a man - Odo, an insufferable fat drunkard - to kill his brother, to take revenge for that brother not paying her any heed. The guilt destroyed Odo, of course. Or was he already destroyed? He was a drunk, and a liar and a cheat, that I know... or did that come after his brothers death, after Abigail showed him the way?
Did she show him the way? I do not know. All I had was a doll and a fat man's word... a dead fat man's word... it is not hard for a witcher to kill a fat drunk craven.
I cannot follow these thoughts further, I have to push ahead and recover the stolen goods. I must take myself and my pass to the gate, where Mikul will let me in... to beg entry from a man whose assault drove his 'love' to suicide...
This is not working. Let me record some facts, instead of thoughts:
I killed the ghoul in the crypt and the drowner in the river: They were not difficult for me. My body remembers how to fight if nothing else, and takes great pleasure in it. Perhaps it is the simplicity. I beat the drowner inch by inch back from the shore and he fell from a thousand cuts. The ghoul did not last as long for I stunned him with my first spell and removed his head in a stroke. (The beast fell the same way.)
I rescued a girl called Vesna from a bunch of thugs one night. She was thankful. As was a peasant woman to whom I gave some flowers. There is more physical reward in this world than just fighting... though for me the pleasure is of a similar nature. I did not pass up Abigail's offer either. Should I feel any guilt for this? It does not matter, I do not. What I learn in the future will not change the present. Or my past, whatever that is. Though I do wonder if Vesna managed to flee... no, I will follow this. Had I know it would be the same.
I received 100 gold from a traveller who recognised me, making good an old debt. I note this down to make a balance for all else. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps it is not simply humans. Perhaps there was some malign curse on these people. Dear Abigail, perhaps the reverend was right... no, no. He was an evil man and met his end on those terms. If I missed justice by not doubting and killing every single person matters not. I did not know.
I buried a man who had died trying to enter the city from below in the crypt. A spectre spoke to me and set Leo's shade upon me. Leo fared no better in death than life. Perhaps the message here is for him, not me: If you had known, Leo, would you have apprenticed to Vesemir? Perhaps you could have lived in a village instead... and been sold to salamandra like Alvin...
If I did die, as Zoltan says, why did I come back?
Enough, I must go to Mikul. The past only contorts upon itself; I feel the need to fight again.
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