- No, you can't just eat that!
-?
- What did they teach you at the Witcher School?! First, you take a fruit or berry, squeeze a little juice on your hand and see if there is any allergic reaction. Then squeeze a little on your lip, and if everything is fine there too, you can start eating," - I tell her how to do a field test for possible poison in food, the caveman level. If there was a mouse or a small dog around, we could switch to a more efficient way of testing, medieval level.
- So annoying," - Ciri grumbles.
- But then you won't shit or puke farther than you can see. So take it slow and easy," I tell her.
This is how a survival crash course in the harsh environment of the desert takes place. At first Ciri was mad and didn't accept any of my advice and did what she thought was right. But a couple hours with stomach aches and nausea made her finally start listening to my advice. Now there's another lesson to be learned.
- Yes this water is definitely not safe to drink, but you can use it to cool down. While it's evaporating, you won't be as hot," - I tell her, pointing to a puddle of water.
- Am I supposed to walk around with wet clothes? I'll get a chafe somewhere and then I'll be walking around with a rash or even a blister," says Ciri, arching an eyebrow questioningly.
- In this heat, your clothes will dry much sooner than you scratch anything, and you don't have to soak all your clothes, just the outer layer. So come on, show me a raccoon rinsing his food.
- Grrrrr. You're really pissing me off. One minute you're calling me a sparrow, the next you're calling me a raccoon," - Ciri starts grumbling again.
- Less mumbling, more hydration. Come on, get your paws in there and hurry up. We have to get as far as we can before the sun goes down and you have to freeze in your wet clothes at night. We don't want to get bronchitis, do we?
- You're so annoying. Now you're threatening me with bronchitis," - Ciri mutters with a hint of anger in her voice.
- Well, well. Looks like someone didn't study the human body and how it works, so you're in for a little lecture on the respiratory system tonight," - I assume the pose of a mentor and respond to her irritation with the tone of an academician.
- Respirate. What? I've had more than enough with wilderness survival courses. I want to rest, not listen to your lectures, especially after a long journey in this desert.
- What an ungrateful little bird you are. For the knowledge I share with you, any respectable healer or scientist would give up all his money, possessions, family and even mistresses.
- Yeah, right. I can see the crowds of grateful listeners in this shithole of a world.
- Yeah, I guess I'll have to replace the respiratory lecture with a lecture about manners.
- Tsk! You're such a hypocrite! Sometimes you swear like a dwarf after a couple of drinks, and now you're telling me how to behave," - Ciri says angrily.
- I'm fine with that. There must be some eccentricity in me. So go ahead, roll up your sleeves and start rinsing your jacket, but try to keep your hands out of the water. You don't want any extra salt, especially like this stuff.
- You're so annoying! - and I just laughed in response to that.
And so our journey in the Korath Desert continued. Unlike me, a disembodied spirit devoid of the needs of a living body such as food, water or rest, Ciri had a much rougher time. She had to chew on all sorts of nasty things no matter how disgusting they looked. Cockroaches, lizards, eggs, fruits, and so on. The only exceptions were scolopendras, scorpions and other venomous creatures. But for the water, it was even worse. Sometimes you could find palm trees that gave juice, but more often you had to drink from very small puddles, and not each of them had normal water. Ciri even had to lick the dew from underneath of rocks. To summarize, it was total shit.
But thanks to my little knowledge from Fort Grim, it wasn't too bad. Ciri was suffering from thirst and hunger, but it wasn't quite the horror that was described in the book. Thanks to me, she wasn't suffering from hallucinations and poisoning, which helped in surviving in this desert. So we kept moving forward, and Ciri could more or less navigate by the sun and the stars. I was completely useless here, for I did not know the local star map or the sun's peculiarities.
My knowledge was useful, of course, but I consider my greatest success to have been in keeping her from falling into disrepair. In the evenings I entertained her with various stories and lectures. Even though she grumbled, it was obvious that she was interested, especially when describing the structure of the human body, I explained what injuries and wounds that might be dangerous and fatal. Yes, I can see the influence of her Witcher training, which mostly focused on anatomy, or rather, how to use it in battle. I'm trying to compensate for that bias with my combat field medic and first aid training on how to heal and treat wounds.
There were also various stories about history, politics, and economics. I was far from being a professor, but my knowledge was enough for Masters. Thanks to my grandfather and the hell of study I'd been through. She was not so interested in it, until I started to explain how all this knowledge can be utilized in practice. For example, how you can defeat an enemy without fighting decisive battles, but by using guerrilla tactics, or why one enemy can and should be allowed to escape, while another one must be killed as soon as possible.
Guerrilla tactics were of particular interest to her because she still saw herself as the leader of Cintra and wanted to reclaim her grandmother's lands. Oh, Ciri, if you only knew that you already practically own Cintra, and even Nilfgrad as well, just by birthright. I'd love to see the expression on your face when you find out who your biological father is.
Gradually she started to realize that I could give her such knowledge, which would be very useful to her in the future when she gets her throne back. So eventually she started to listen and ask me questions during evening stops.
But there was a less pleasant side to the evening stops. Nearly every night, Ciri suffered from nightmares. Even VJ tried to help her by snuggling next to her feet and letting himself be cuddled by her in her sleep. Except it didn't help much. Ciri would suffer nightmares like that until one night VJ fell asleep with her, and then they started twitching and moaning together. Worried for them, I went purely on instinct and tried to comfort them by gently patting them. Just when my hands touched them, I was about to sigh in frustration, due to my ethereal state, I got pulled into their nightmare.
- Aah! What the fuck is that? The smell of burning? Blood? - I suddenly felt alive and able to sense.
The smell of fire hit my nose like a punch, and the sounds of carnage and metal clinking in my ears. All around me were buildings on fire and blood on the ground. Before I realized where I was, I heard Ciri screaming from the distance.
Without wasting time on unnecessary thoughts, I went to where Ciri's scream was coming from. In a small square with fountains, I saw Ciri and VJ surrounded by strange creatures that looked like Nilfgrad knights with helmets adorned with the wings of a bird of prey. They were like a pack of wolves, encircling Ciri and VJ from all sides and pouncing as soon as they distracted their victims. Ciri and VJ could only keep dodging and trying to stay out of the enemy's grasp.
When I could finally get to them, the situation got worse. The circle around Ciri and VJ had gotten much smaller. My arrival caught the attention of one of the knights, who drew his sword and walked in my direction. The other knights, like robots, turned their heads in my direction, but did not take a step in my direction.
- Ciri! Grab my cat and run! - I shout to her while looking at the knight walking towards me. He is all clad in heavy armor and helmet with a small visor. Unlike a normal man in armor, this knight is surrounded by an aura of darkness, and his eyes are glowing a blood red color.
- Ciri! Run! - But she continues to freeze, not even paying attention to VJ, who is like a dog trying to make her run. I want to try to shout to her, but the knight attacks me and forces me to dodge the sword.
- Shit,- I exhale and try to show some sort of resistance. But I don't have my armor and TT weapons, and my enemy has heavy armor and a sharp sword. In the beginning I somehow managed to evade enemy attacks, but this couldn't last long. A sharp slashing strike and my shoulder burns with fire, and blood starts flowing down my arm from the wound.
After that, the situation got worse. The enemy started pushing harder and now there are several small wounds and cuts on my body. On their own they are not so bad, but all together they are quite troublesome. Pain, blood loss, and limited mobility. With every passing second, it's only getting worse.
I see a strike that should have hit me right in the liver, I activate my implants in reflex. At the last moment I smirk at my reflex, I don't have my implants here. But to my big surprise, I notice that the knight slowed down. I can't believe my luck, but not wanting to miss this opportunity, I hit the knight's arm, knocking out the sword and immediately after it I do a combo of kicks aimed at his legs, knocking him to the ground. Another kick and the knight rolls over on his stomach, I grab his neck and break it with a quick snap, just like I was taught. With a loud howl, the knight disintegrates, leaving only empty armor.
Another knight steps towards me, while the rest of the knights continue to guard Ciri. I quickly run and pick up sword that belonged to knight I defeated just now. I don't have amazing swordsmanship skills, aside from very basic training and a gift from Yerinobu, a braindance that was supposed to teach me how to fight with a katana. The gift from Yerinobu was much more useful in teaching me swordsmanship than what I was taught in TT and Fort Grim, so I could do some sword fighting. But at most at the level of a good amateur. Oh, and the knight's sword was a bastard sword, not a katana, so the situation wasn't as disastrous as it had been less than a minute ago, but also far from good.
My only way out was to activate my implants, which I sort of have and don't have. Magic. Fucking Magic. That's the only thing that could explain this strange thing. Fuck it. If it works, it works.
My swordsmanship was nowhere near Geralt's level, but the enhanced speed and strength thanks to the implants that had strangely transferred here with me allowed to overcome that problem. Slowing down the enemy allowed me to stick my sword right into the slit of his helmet. Within ten seconds, I was able to take him down. Speed is an important thing not only in firefights, but also in close combat.
Then I had to hold a few more duels until the last knight fell, and the otherworldly being inside didn't disintegrate and the armor didn't scatter to the ground. To my incredible luck, the knights to the last considered Ciri a more important target than me, so I was lucky that only one at a time came out against me. Now I could finally catch my breath. The wounds and the activation of the implants took a toll on me.
After walking to Ciri and VJ sitting next to her, I poked my fingers into her forehead and said:
- Wake up.
A vortex opened up above us and sucked us in.
I found myself back in our camp site. Ciri was sleeping peacefully, and VJ squinted his eyes, meowed, and went back to sleep, snuggling comfortably in her arms.
Yup, one hell of a gratitude. Upon examining myself, I noticed that my astral body was free of any damage from the fight with the nightmare knights. I smiled in satisfaction and decided to try activating the implants. Time slowed down and a sense of power returned. That's good. Sadly, I'm still limited in my physical interactions.
- So I became Freddy Krueger. I hope I don't have to wear that sweater and hat," - I sighed and looked up at the first rays of the morning sun.