Three years have passed at Kaer Morhen....
Time passed by at the keep, but not all at once, or in any simple way .
To Cain, time passed by in buckets of sweat, an ungodly amount of bruises, cracked ribs, torn calluses, and sleepless nights. Days upon days of drills in the freezing cold, rainy spring, and hot summer sparring. And hundred's of small humiliations that slowly became a foundation of his strength.
Callum and Cain passed time in a routine so brutal and steady that at some point it stopped feeling like punishment and became just another day in their life's. Kaer Morhen ceased to be a place Cain and became his home.
Now he and Callum were nine.
The two hit a great growth spurt. Both boys stood at 4'9. Very tall for children their ages, which the Witcher's dismissed as them have troll blood as wells in a joking manner.
Callum, The boy who had once sat by the hearth chewing stolen bread and venison was taller now, leaner, stronger, his movements were far more assured. His red hair still fell around his ears in that same easy way. And his emerald eyes still carried that lively brightness that never disappeared even once.
Cain had changed just as much.
He had grown into his body enough to say he was truly one with it. His limbs no longer felt borrowed. His balance and reflexes were sharper. His stride was natural. And when he used a sword, it no longer felt like a piece of iron forced into a child's grip, but an extension of himself. The intense training, of relearning a harsher discipline and killer instinct's slowly becoming one with his personality.
The rich light brown of his skin, the snow-white hair, with his golden eyes, features only magnified over time, which made him unforgettable. But now there was a tiny bit of lean muscle under his boyish frame, callus in the palms, and something colder in the way he looked at the world.
The two boys were in the upper courtyard, hard at work.
Snow still clung to the mountain edges and lay in the shadowed cracks of Kaer Morhen's stone, though the day itself was cold and clear enough for training. The upper court had become a familiar place of repetition, wooden posts, packed earth, scattered straw, old stone, and the watching eyes of Witcher's who had seen too many boys rise, break, or die.
Cain was getting his ass handed to him.
Again.
Geralt moved around him with great ease and speed. Geralt's movements were simple, efficient, and impossible for Cain to ignore. The two's blades struck together in hard, rapid sequences that rattled up Cain's arms and bones.
Geralt outmaneuvered and overpowered him, and critiqued him all at once. Geralt wasted no energy in his fluid movements, His breathing was calm, even as he pointed out what Cain had done wrong.
"Your sword swing is too wide," Geralt said as he knocked Cain's blade aside and slid inside his guard.
Cain twisted back just in time to avoid a strike to the ribs, resetting his footing as fast as he could. But Geralt kept moving without pause.
"Your stance is drifting."
Then steel cracked against steel knocking Cain back and staggering him. Cain tried to recover, turning his wrists and adjusting the angle. Then stepping back left to bait a follow-up and counter, but Geralt read it immediately.
"Your tightening your grip to much. It slowing down your response."
Another exchange occurred between the two, this time it was faster faster.
Cain's arms were moving well enough. His footwork wasn't sloppy. His form, in isolation, would have looked good to anyone outside Kaer Morhen. But that was the problem.
He wasn't being judged by anyone outside Kaer Morhen.
Geralt attacked his weak points with brutal precision. He punished him for repeating patterns. Punished Cain's hesitation to defend or attack. And punished him harder when he overcommitment.
Every correction was delivered through hard and fast impacts. Geralt took advantage of every opening Cain.
While across the yard, Callum was sparring Coën, and somehow doing better. Well better then Cain was doing anyway.
Coën, dark-bearded and red veins in his eye from the aftereffects of his unstable mutations, fought with a style that felt different from Geralt's. Considering he was from the Witcher School of the Griffin that wasn't to surprising. The Griffin school still uses a practical fighting style.
They prefer fighting smart" over "fighting strong. But it's no less coldly surgical or adaptive.
Callum was holding his own for the moment, earning brief acknowledgments from Coën whenever he recovered well or took a smart angle.
Cain had noticed over the last three years that Callum still always did better once the pressure rose. That second wind of his was still there.
It was irritating as it was impressive.
Happening in the middle of drills, sparring, and intense obstacle coarse runs. And right now, while Callum was managing to earn Coën's respect blow by blow, Cain was getting methodically dismantled by Geralt.
Cain and Geralts swords met again.
Cain cut low, shifted to the inside, and tried to draw Geralt's line away with pressure on the blade.
Geralt slid free of it.
"That's Better," he said, which somehow made it worse.
He snapped and launched a quick strike toward Cain's wrist. Cain try to parry but was to late, he recovered high, then dropped into a short driving cut meant to test Geralt's centerline.
Geralt parried it aside so hard Cain felt his fingers jolt.
"Your damn arm placement again."
Then with a twist and shove. Geralt's blade struck Cain's hilt near the base and ripped the sword clean from his grip.
The blade spun away.
But Cain didn't let losing his sword stop him. Just because he lost his sword didn't mean he'd lost. That thought flashed through him in the same instant his body moved.
He launched himself forward at Geralt's groin.
It was a dirty move.
But It was also, in Cain's opinion, a realistic move. This wouldn't work against monsters, but when it came to dealing with men, he didn't care about fairness. If Geralt expected him to think like prey, he had picked the wrong transmigrated bastard.
Cain's leg lashed up hard, aiming to end the spar in the most humiliating way possible. But Geralt reacted faster than Cain thought he would.
His hand snapped out, caught Cain's leg just below the knee, and with terrifying strength he turned the whole motion against him.
Cain's world flipped as he suddenly hit the ground hard. The impact knocked the air out of him in one ugly grunt and left him seeing a flash of white sky and stone before the world settled back into shape.
Across the yard, almost at the same moment, Coën swept Callum's footing out from under him and dumped the red-haired boy onto his back as well.
For one second both boys were on the ground, groaning in pain while the two Witchers stood over looking not even warmed up.
Geralt looked down at Cain first. "You lost your sword and thought," he said. "Wouldn't work on monsters , but against humans not bad. But you need to stop dropping your sword."
Cain rolled partly onto his side, sucked in air, and muttered, "Yes, Geralt."
" Mhmm. One thousand swings."
Cain squeezed his eyes shut for half a heartbeat.
Then Geralt added, "And wall holds."
Cain opened one eye and looked up. Geralt's face was as unreadable as winter.
"This time your gonna hold three swords."
Cain stared at him wanting to say something, but he knew if he complained at all things much worse.
"That's the third time this year I've disarmed you," Geralt said. "If this were real, you'd have died three times."
There wasn't anything to say to that except the truth. So Cain pushed himself up onto one elbow and answered, "Yes, Geralt."
Nearby, Coën stepped over to Callum and offered him a hand up. "Looks like you're joining him, kid," he said. "And when you're done, then you can eat."
Callum groaned dramatically. "That's going to take forever."
Cain forced himself upright and glanced toward Coën.
Even after three years, he still couldn't entirely get over what he saw when he looked at the Witcher. Coën looked just like a younger Luke Evans, only harder around the eyes and bearing those red-tinted Witcher eyes that Cain knew came from the trouble Coën had endured during his mutation process. The dark beard hid some of the scars he likely would have carried more openly otherwise, but it didn't soften him.
It just made him look more dangerous. And Callum had once asked Coën about the red hue in his eyes. The answer had been followed by an educational ass-kicking so brutal that Cain had learned never to ask the same question himself.
Before the punishments could begin, footsteps sounded from the keep entrance.
Vesemir crossed into the courtyard, gray ponytail shifting slightly in the wind, his lined face unreadable. He had that look on him that meant he had been thinking hard, and that usually meant something important.
Vesemir stopped near the center of the court and looked at the boys. "After you're done with the boys, you two come see me in the dining hall."
Callum and Cain both straightened a little despite themselves. "Yes, sir," they said together.
Vesemir nodded once and left as quietly as he'd arrived. Neither boy said anything after that. They both knew punishment came first.
Soon after, Cain and Callum were at the wooden posts.
Cain's palms were already thick with calluses from three years of handling steel, wood, rope, buckets, tools, and even more steel, but pain still found its way in. The skin tore in old places. Wrists ached. Elbows burned. Shoulders numbed and reawakened and numbed again.
He thanked the system for it's healing rewards which made things more bearable.
The first hundred swings came quickly and then the next hundred and the next. Cain lost time to repetition.
Cut. Recover. Reset. Cut. Recover. Reset.
The blade struck the wood so many times that the rhythm stopped belonging to thought and became something more physically instinctual. The pain in his hands eventually dulled into one broad ache. Sweat prickled under his tunic despite the cold. His breathing deepened and roughened. Somewhere beside him, Callum was also swinging, though his punishment had been shorter by a little, since he had at least kept his sword during the spar.
When the swings were finally done, wall holds came next.
Geralt stacked the three swords across Cain's outstretched arms and gave him a look that dared him to complain. But Cain didn't.
He simply lowered into the squat against the stone and held.
Every second felt longer than the one before it. By the halfway point his shoulders were shaking uncontrollably. By the time Geralt finally released him, his arms felt like dead branches nailed onto his body. And his legs trembled from every step, but still the day wasn't over.
Only when both boys had completed their punishment did they make their way into the keep.
The dining hall was dim and warm compared to the courtyard, its hearths alive with a large fire. Cain made it to a bench, sat, and was handed a bowl of soup and a heel of bread hard enough to be used as a hammer in a lesser emergency.
He had learned that in Kaer Morhen you either ate what was put in front of you or you got hungrier. He barely got through the first few bites before the system window appeared.
System Notification: Daily Training Quest Complete
Rewards Received: Health and Stamina Fully Restored. +1 Ability Point. +1 Attribute Point
Bonus Rewards Received:1 Random Point can be assigned to a selected attribute or reserved
[Ability / Attribute Point] selection available.
Cain's eyes sharpened.
Finally another bonus reward.
It had been long enough that the appearance of one almost made him laugh. The system waited until he was exhausted, frustrated, and eating slop to hand him something actually interesting.
He reviewed the choices quickly in his mind.
He had been hoarding points for a while now, distributing carefully and only when he felt sure about the return. His attributes had all risen sharply over the last three years. Intelligence too. Charisma, on the other hand, had lagged a little behind. That wasn't surprising, Kaer Morhen was not exactly a school for charm, leadership, or social finesse. The monster, potion, and alchemy knowledge only help somewhat.
If he had to spend the random point anywhere, Charisma made the most sense. Because he wanted to see how much influence it would have if he tried to change things around the keep.
Cain noticed that the keep managed things poorly. Mainly considering it was mostly Vesimir handling every for the most part. Cain thought of several improvements that could be made to the keep. Like building a shower, tub and toilet, without it costing a fortune or installing pipes.
Not to mention ways to make or save money for the Keeps repairs, and upkeep and possible upgrades. But I need to make sure my charisma attribute is high enough before I try. It will be my first attempt to change things around me ,before I go out into world and try to change the events of the books.
Cain mentally selected Charisma, and another notification appeared at once.
System Notification: Your body has strengthened from training.
+1 Constitution
+1 Strength
+1 Dexterity
+1 Wisdom
+1 Charisma
The reward hit him like warm current of energy flowing through his every muscle.
The aches and pains drained away first. Then the heaviness in his thighs. His lungs felt more opened. Even the brain fog of tiredness that had been forming behind his eyes dissolved into sharp clarity.
Health and stamina fully restored had worked every time, but Cain still found the sensation deeply satisfying.
A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he and Callum rose from the dining hall benches and made their way through the keep's broad halls toward where Vesemir had called them.
As they walked, Cain found himself looking back on how quickly those three years had gone. He and Callum had both changed more than boys that age were supposed to.
They were bigger now, their childish roundness trimmed away by labor, seasons, and relentless conditioning. Their hands were rough. Their postures were straighter. Their reflexes were sharper.
They knew how to read signs in the snow, how to clean and maintain blades, how to identify herbs, and how to survive on too little sleep, and how to take punishment without showing too much weakness in front of the wrong person.
As soon as Cain and Callum entered the dining hall's adjoining chamber, they saw Vesemir already waiting, as Eskel and Lambert stood with him.
Coën and Geralt entered behind the boys a moment later, making the room feel suddenly much smaller.
No one smiled or one pretended the mood was anything but serious. Cain's had figured already what this was about knew.
This was it.
Vesemir looked at both boys for a long moment before speaking. "Well, boys," he said, voice low and steady. "After a long time of waiting, gathering the right ingredients and materials, and a little testing, and studying… we've done it."
Cain and Callum both went very still.
"We are ready to proceed with the Trial of the Grasses."
"What is your choice boys?" His voice lost some of its iron then. "I would not blame either of you if you said no. This is not something I ask lightly."
Cain didn't even have to think, not because he was fearless. Because the system window appeared before him right as Vesemir .
System Notification: New Quest Unlocked
Rare Ranked Quest: Trial of the Grasses
Objective: Take and survive the Trial of the Grasses.
Rewards: +3 to All Attributes. 1 Rare Equipment Chest. 1 New Skill. 1 New Ability
Warning: If you decline this quest, you could die.
[Accept / Decline]
Cain's expression did not change. But inside the rage began to flare again. There it is again, that damned threat, as if that made it better. The system was still shoving him with a hand at his back and calling it a choice.
Cain didn't bother thinking, he just clicked Accept, and the quest window vanished. That's when he looked at Callum, and for the first time since they had met, Cain could see something on Callum's face that had never truly been there before.
Frustration, and beneath it, something else, something Cain didn't understand.
After a moment Vesemir asked again, his voice patient but firm.
"What will it be boy's?"
Cain answered first. "I'll go through with it."
Callum drew a breath, held it, then said, "I will too."
Vesemir nodded once, slow and solemn.
"Then we will begin." He looked to Coën and Geralt. "Give the boys their meal and tea."
Cain frowned slightly at that, though he didn't say anything. He knew what was about to happen, and dreaded the pain he was about to endure. Not the psychical pain of training his body to the point of breaking he had gotten use to.
But the internal pain of his his stomach turning, nausea, and more pain he could only imagine. All of it was part of the preparation.
The sedation didn't sound to much better. Just herbal support to stop them from hurting themselves more. Which probably wouldn't do to much considering their elven heritage.
When Cain looked to Callum, he looked openly unhappy now. That made Cain glance at him as Geralt and Coën moved toward the side table where food and cups had already been set out.
"Callum are you ok?" Cain asked quietly.
Callum shook his head once. " Yeah I'm fine, it's nothing."
I could tell that was that was a lie, and a poor one too. But after a second, Callum added, "Just me accepting the scariness of our situation ."
I didn't press him. Not here. Not now. Who wouldn't be scared, you have to go through incredible pain just to hear you might still die anyway.
Instead he said, quietly and honestly, " I'm here. You won't go through this alone."
Callum looked at him for a moment, then gave a small nod that held more gratitude than words would have. Cain stepped away for a moment beneath the excuse of adjusting himself before the meal.
Then he opened his status window. Now was the time to use the points he had saved.
Especially if he was about to go through the Trial of the Grasses, there was no point hoarding them if he might die. He doubted the system would revive him should he actually die.
He pulled the full window up before his eyes.
Status Window
Name: Cain
Age: 9
Race: Half-Elf (Human, Elven)
Bloodline Trait: [Sealed]
Class: None
Attributes:
Constitution: 30
Strength: 30
Dexterity: 32
Wisdom: 39
Intelligence: 38
Charisma: 28
Luck: Unknown
Ability Points: 13
Attribute Points: 47
Abilities & Skills:
Wolf Pack (Rare)
Swordsmanship (Level 5)
Meditation (Level 4)
He stared at the numbers for a second. These were the results of three years of his hard work and training. Three years of blood sweat and tears, and after today it was only going to get harder.
Cain swallowed and distributed his attribute points
System Notification: Your attributes have risen.
Constitution: 30→ 39
Strength: 30→ 37
Dexterity: 32→ 38
Wisdom: 39→ 40
Intelligence: 38→ 42
Charisma: 28→39
Ability Points: 13
Attribute Points: 47→ 0
Cain had felt his body begin to surge with power. Almost to much power at once, he was starting to feel light-headed from the rush of his attributes increasing all at once.
He kept himself composed, taking in his higher attributes and hoped they were enough. He thought after they rose to a certain point he would receive a new skill or ability. But that goes to show the right conditions haven't been met yet.
But he was no longer the starving six-year-old who had woken up naked in an alley ready to freeze to death or be eaten by a vampire. He was stronger and ready to become something else. In order to survive the future.
Then his body had lightened and he exhaled slowly and closed the window. When he returned, Callum was standing by the table with his cup untouched, looking down into it as if it might give him answers.
Cain stepped beside him and put a hand on his back. "Let's do this. Together."
Callum looked at him. For once, the red-haired boy had no joke ready. No easy grin. No exaggerated complaint. Just a look of honesty.
"I'll see you on the other end of this brother."
Cain held his gaze, surprised to hear that. He called him brother, Cain wanted to smile but he knew first they had to survive the trial.
Cain nodded. "To hell and back."