Cavernous shadows froze their bones. Further inside the valley, each step dug into the earth. Stone's cold, its narrow halls seemed those of a prison without bars, going for all eternity in a splitting image of Hell itself.

Condescending mist of pure darkness should have clouded their vision away from the trails they followed and perhaps into the instincts of fear that humans experience in the dark. Their minds did not play tricks, not even in the obscurity of Azaras boxed lantern dangling between them; their tensioning silence was too strong to trigger anything else but an adrenaline response.

Each time a speck of the space between rails turned to a pool of dried blood, each time the shadows revealed in the orange light clawed paths, scratched in the walls of the mine, Geralt and Azaras knew they were nearing an answer, or at least would at some point. For now, there was no visual guarantee of monsters, nor even finding the missing villagers.

Though unhappy about it at first, Azaras was quite glad Geralt found, as per usual, a middle way. By first undermining her capability to carry out the target's killing, he insisted to join her in the descent down the infernal abyss of these abandoned mines. Were she to come face to face with the monster which she has been hunting, he'll give her the chance to settle the score; and if she were to be sloppy and fail, he'll be there to finish it off.

It wasn't the concept behind it which brought, at last, some joy to her numb heart, but the simple fact that after two years, she wasn't entirely alone for once.

From everyone out there, Geralt's path crossing with hers again felt like a good reminiscing of a buried happiness and entombed past. But their meeting also came with the promise of an end. Before ever meeting Geralt and even after, Azaras recalled having been rather scared of Witchers. Their mutated nature, unnatural glint of their eyes, those were superficial aspects, but perhaps it scared her more thinking there was such a ghostly being to walk emotionlessly the world.

Now, she knew better, for she has become that too. A heavy door has crushed the royalty in her, killed the woman who baked and laid in grass to watch the clouds; it forged in blood a passive soul.

The light flickered in her lantern only partially. Beyond that point, the darkness was the subejct to Geralt's enhanced senses. A tingle alerted him and he interfered for both their sakes in the nick of time. His right arm wrapped around Azaras and pulled her back from in front of him to now stumble against the wall. Wearing his full armour, the cloak fit right in with the darkness, so Geralt raised the material and duck his head. The right hand gestured down at the lantern and wordlessly Azaras understood.

She lowered the light and hid it too, under her own travel cloak. They made quite some strong sounds, between the stomps of their boots and the clicks of the metal they carried, but once this position commenced, the only sound which remained was a silence, slowing fading into the noise which Geralt felt, caverns away, approaching.

"Quiet," he murmured the strong demans, having felt her squirm to straighten up. His low voice swayed her in no way at all to cease the little tingle of her quiver against the hard cavern wall.

Azaras had a certain darkness around her eyes, a paint she wore, even back in the day, as a sort of symbol of her eyes' beauty. Green surrounded by black, fit right in with the scenery, because the woman bent down and curled one finger around the edge of Geralt's cloak meeting with the wall. She pulled it aside enough for only her right eye to glance out. Unlike him, her senses weren't all on peak; she had to relate on what she was most certain of and seeing was a definite equivalent to believing.

Geralt did not have to risk a glance to know what Azaras might be seeing. The beast was carrying a still live prey for a while. Blood was gushing from some part as it was dragged across the rails and for some reasons, though struggling, in the humane way, to escape, they could not scream or speak. Not that so deep into the ground, anyone could hear.

A bone cracking sound echoed across the mine, followed by a thud.

Azaras watched as the head of a man rolled into view, bumping its stop right in the archway at the end of this hallway they were on. Through there, they were supposed to go until Geralt stopped them. Finally, the horrific munching sounds came closer and the reason why the man hasn't screamed became obvious: his throat has been eaten and tongue removed.

A strong step announced that the monster finished its lunch break and continued walking with the remaining of the body. It might take a turn, it might even smell them and since Geralt watched down over Azaras, still studying and waiting to see, he too grunted impatient. "Is it the one?"

Timely, the monster came into view.

Azaras felt her heart drop.

Containing her rage became impossible all of a sudden and her jaw tensed under the influence of color getting further drained from her skin. Geralt's medallion started vibrating lowly, responding to the danger which definitely sensed them as its step soundly halted. Azaras reteeated back, pinned to the wall and met Geralt's expecting gaze.

She shook her head.

It was not the monster she was looking for. In fact, they looked nothing alike and it reminded her of how much of a fool she'd been to be so desperate as to forget a winged beast... in a mine... made no sense at all. Azaras greeted her teeth though, despite Geralt not voicing any judgment and perhaps even remaining silent in a way of expressing his own variant of regret this would not be the end of her vengeance after all.

Her gaze lowered and Geralt watched the woman shudder before, feral-like, pushing him away from her. The burst of sound confirmed an attack to the beast and it screeched then slithered rushing to meet the opponent.

The lantern has been left behind, kicked over and shedding only half its lights.

A shine reflected: from the blood-stained teeth of the pale beast, from Azaras' bow, from the tip of her arrow, even from the confusion in Geralt's eyes.

One would think a Witcher has lived long enough to have ver little left in the world to stun him. Seeing Azaras move with a speed and force inappropriately potent for a mere human, counted now as one of the few things in life that could still startle him from immediately joining a fight or registering an event nonchalantly.

Azaras released the first arrow while starting her jump. Lifted off the ground the arrow went through the beast's right eye, pushing right into its skull and out the back of the minuscular bald head. It screeched and tossed, chin hitting the ground and allowing Azaras the space, under that archway, to make use if it and turn.

With the bow in her left hand and the sword now in the right, she landed on the monster's back and stabbed the spine. While speed and death made the monster slide away, the sword tore open its whole elongated and putrid body.

If Geralt did not know better, he would have said Azaras fought like a Witcher.

He got up when the second screech followed from deep within the mine. The rumbling of rocks was not from a dead monster, which as a matter of fact, approaching the corpse of did not help him identify its species, but only its gender.

"It's a mother," Geralt immediately made the connection. He didn't have the chance to step over and stand beside Azaras when a spike oozing of poison passed by her head and stopped in the top of the archway, cracking even the stone, so hard the line has scarred deep within, even in the ceiling.

The archway led into a wider area, with several exits, all, except from where they came from, behind which, sounds alerted them for a possible surround.

Azaras was still facing Geralt and the dead creature. She did not reach out to take her sword from the corpse, but rather raised her hand back after the missed attack, to take another arrow. Her touch counted for her that she had at least ten more arrows.

She placed the arrow on the bow, turned around and with almost no hesitation of aim, she released the arrow into the head of the smaller version of the same beastly creature she just killed. The children of that thing were many and they were all feral with sorrow, apparently.

The mother must have been expected to bring them the food she stored some place else. Now, there was a slight change of menu, it seemed.

Two more emerged at the same time.

Azaras aimed another arrow to the left and Geralt pulled her sword, much closer and in handy, and jumped in the middle of this room, decaptiating the one on the right. That one felt next to the decapitated corpse of one of the villagers which foolishly came down there, handing themselves on a silver plater to a family of whatever these things were.

It was concerning to begin with that Geralt couldn't tell what they are dealing with, just that it was something and not what Azaras was looking for.

He started to think her only criteria in looking for her monster was seeking out anything that eats fresh flesh off of victims, which was, quite the impossible task.

Three more arrows, three more of the monster children down, but there was no sign the sound of claws and thundering steps to stop of fade. There could be an entire hive there that they stepped into the territory of.

These were the moments when Geralt wished he followed his personal rules and went in alone, the way he could be more careful and have less or a need to find the easiest way out of the mess.

Thinking at the same time, Azaras and Geralt both found the solution by just remembering the monsters were so lale their whiteness brought light to the darkness of the mines too. "My sword," Azarad demanded first.

Geralt threw it back with his left hand while his right palm pushed forward a blueish light which dazed any of the attacking monsters launching the claws his way. It gave him enough time to release the silver blade of his sword.

Azaras caught her own while her other hand has already retrieved a small bottle from pouch hanging from the belt around her waist. She crushed it in her hand and rubbed the liquid over her sword. All this, she has been doing knelt down, but even so small, a monster still noticed her and lunged in an attack.

Geralt saw that too late.

Azaras expected it.

With her sword oiled, she dropped the shards on the ground and twisted around in the last second. Her sword came flatly on the monster's open mouth, razor sharp in cutting away at its corners, just enough to trigger the reflex of the monster to bite down. The fast graze of the rock hard teeth with the blade caused a spark and the sword caught fire.

Screeches of pain filled the chamber of the mine.

Igni.

Geralt used his own sigil practice along with Azaras and soon, they were back to back, in the middle of a room with all exits on fire, where monsters burned, their skin melted to the bone and piled over each other. Thousands of children, one mother. Azaras lowered her torching sword, slowly loosing the effect as the oil driped down from its tip.

"Wonder if the father of these things is still around," she voice the faintest curiosity.

It birthed a shudder and a roar so hard it vibrated like an earthquake bringing dust from the ceiling over them both, even over Geralt's Medallion, announcing the danger did not end with the death of these smaller monsters in the flames.

"You just had to ask for it," he grumbled.

As in any species, the female was the biggest. Since it has probably just given birth, Azaras killed her at her weakest state, hence with ease. The male of this unknown species could be just as big, for it was not left fragile from the pains of the curse of life.

The assumption was about to be tested. The sounds drew nearer.

A large and well built pale creature emerged, breaking one of the gateways and putting out the fire there with a flick of its thin wings it has evolved with. Boulders got sent forward from its entrance.

Heliotrop.

In the lack of time for a better sigil, Geralt stepped in front of Azaras and crossed his arms in an X shape. A faint shield protected them from the biggest boulder, letting it crumble to little stones at their feet rather than crush them dead.

By the grace of his save, Azaras slid under Geralt's arm and took the front placement once more, swining her just put out sword at the extended claws of the beast. It may have been winged, but its head did not match the thing she ought to be hunting.

It did not change the determination to kill off the wretched danger, subconsciously working together with a fast and agile Witcher. The monster did not cause them too much trouble as it has been underfed since the village understood not to send any more people in the mines.

Soon, Azaras could even clean her sword with a piece of cloth from her pouch, staring at the things they fought and killed, a graveyard smelling awfully, even with the crack of flames still lighting their room from place to place. Geralt has just made her aware, as succinctly as ever, that he could not name this species as it is probably new.

"How can that be?" She asked and put her cloth away, as well as the sword. One foot has been rested on top of the male monster's corpse until then and she was just not stepping down from leaning on that knee. "Monsters can breed over species and form new ones? Since when-?"

Geralt was beside her when she straightened up, catching her upper right arm into his hand and gripping tighter. Through gritten teeth and past blunt sworded glares, he answered, "Mutation."

Azaras was not as bothered by his words or closeness as she was diturbed by his grip on her, tight enough that it hurt. Geralt took her defensiveness for proof and did not allow himself to be shaken off. Instead, his free hand, otherwise filthy with dust and monster blood dried to his skin, grabbed her chin and forced Azaras, whi have been avoiding this, to look right into his eyes.

"Geralt, let me go!"

"Look at me!" He roared.

One look. Just a few seconds. It was enough for him to see the specks of yellow in the feverish green of her eyes, just about to fade.

What should have been impossible was there, surrounded hy improbability and truth alike. He saw it all for himself, all the signs were before him, but how was it still so hard to believe?

"What did you do?" Geralt's glare narrowed down as Azaras forced her chin away from his trap and her eyes averted. She realized he now knew and she expected the judgment he was now giving her in all spectrums.

"Whatever I did is none of your business. Now, let me go!" She demanded.

"It is my business," Geralt held her arm tighter and pulled her closer, until he could smell the nervousness through the dirt of her skin, similarly covered in the dried blood. They were one and the same, more than ever. "You have been mutated. You are almost like..."

Defiant, her eyes finally returned to meet his. So much spite, she held, so many stories she will not speak of anymore. But she still allowed the continuation of his words to leave her lips, "Like a Witcher."