[ Jaskier and Dean are both proven travel companions, so Geralt has few concerns on his mind when he packs. He restocks his elixirs and Nadine's potions, sharpens and oils his blades, and tells Ciri he will return in a few weeks.
The sky glows a soft pink as they ride out of the gates. The first night, he notices Dean marking paths in his journal. It isn't a bad idea, no. Geralt is a shit cartographer, and understanding what direction you're facing is only a fraction of navigating for him. He knows, for example, that there's a small oasis roughly four days southward. It sits between two rocky cliffs, but it's prone to becoming nesting grounds for sandcats between spring and summer. So, unless you're skilled at sensing when they may or may not be home, you should probably follow the birds, who he's noticed tend to congregate eastward and flit from a few different water sources some miles apart—depending on the season and weather. And, if you plan on taking shelter in a cave at night, you should look for marks in the ground from the dragging tail of a howler. The scratches are a slightly different depth than the much less troublesome moles.
He can't pinpoint where these things are on a map with accuracy. The only person who can grasp his directions is Ciri.
Since they're in winter, the oasis is where they stop for the night before moving on. Geralt is content with the peace and quiet, interrupted only by Jaskier and Dean intermittently chattering (or bickering). Temperatures are not nearly as high as in the summer months, and the much colder nights are a welcome reprieve.
Five days is two days longer than Geralt anticipated Dean would begin to complain. Perhaps the map-making helped distract him.
Without glancing over, he takes Jaskier's offered berries, freshly grown from a small bush last night, and then passes them along to Dean. ] Should I have taken the scenic path through the wyverns?
[ At a certain point, there will be no more riding around monster nests, but doing so for the first leg of the journey is simple enough. It does, however, result in a thoroughly uneventful ride. But they're here to find monsters—a specific set of them—and that means Geralt will soon guide them directly towards where the massive sandworms like to burrow. Amongst other things. ]
no subject
The sky glows a soft pink as they ride out of the gates. The first night, he notices Dean marking paths in his journal. It isn't a bad idea, no. Geralt is a shit cartographer, and understanding what direction you're facing is only a fraction of navigating for him. He knows, for example, that there's a small oasis roughly four days southward. It sits between two rocky cliffs, but it's prone to becoming nesting grounds for sandcats between spring and summer. So, unless you're skilled at sensing when they may or may not be home, you should probably follow the birds, who he's noticed tend to congregate eastward and flit from a few different water sources some miles apart—depending on the season and weather. And, if you plan on taking shelter in a cave at night, you should look for marks in the ground from the dragging tail of a howler. The scratches are a slightly different depth than the much less troublesome moles.
He can't pinpoint where these things are on a map with accuracy. The only person who can grasp his directions is Ciri.
Since they're in winter, the oasis is where they stop for the night before moving on. Geralt is content with the peace and quiet, interrupted only by Jaskier and Dean intermittently chattering (or bickering). Temperatures are not nearly as high as in the summer months, and the much colder nights are a welcome reprieve.
Five days is two days longer than Geralt anticipated Dean would begin to complain. Perhaps the map-making helped distract him.
Without glancing over, he takes Jaskier's offered berries, freshly grown from a small bush last night, and then passes them along to Dean. ] Should I have taken the scenic path through the wyverns?
[ At a certain point, there will be no more riding around monster nests, but doing so for the first leg of the journey is simple enough. It does, however, result in a thoroughly uneventful ride. But they're here to find monsters—a specific set of them—and that means Geralt will soon guide them directly towards where the massive sandworms like to burrow. Amongst other things. ]