The Witcher: Serpent School Witcher's Otherworldly Journey

Giliam's destination, Velen, is a poor land filled with swamps and bandits, though it is also a necessary route to the Isle of Thaned, the location of the sorceresses' gathering place.

That white tower, perched on a secluded island in the sea, is one of the most concentrated centers of magical power on the northern continent. Sorceresses have an insatiable thirst for all sorts of expensive and rare goods.

From the ice lotus of Kovir to the mandrake roots of Toussaint, from the salamander scales of Zericania to the runestone of Mahkan, this meant that even in remote and impoverished places like Velen, there were always daring merchants willing to risk transporting goods to the ports of Xenide.

Giliam's relationship with the sorceresses was neither good nor bad. They needed what he could offer, and he needed what they could give in return—nothing more. Margarita was one of the easier ones to deal with. This blonde sorceresse possessed a scholarly frankness, never beating around the bush, unlike someone like Philippa Ehrert, whose every word seemed like a carefully crafted trap. As the headmistress of Aretusa, Margarita had spent most of her life dealing with young magical apprentices, and perhaps for this reason, her attitude towards witchers was far less condescending than that of the other sorceresses. The last time he worked for Thaned Isle, it was to help them hunt down the gallbladder of a live swamp witch from the depths of the Velen Swamp. That mission nearly killed him, and he spent two whole weeks in bed afterward.

After he recovered, Margarita handed him a heavy bag of gold coins and said, "It's good to be alive," her tone carrying a genuine sense of relief, quite unlike the usual cold politeness of her colleagues.

It would be much faster to travel downstream by merchant ship than to trek through dangerous forests and ubiquitous swamps to Velen. Kiliam reasoned that most merchants would likely not refuse a witcher's offer to protect their ship in exchange for a free ticket.

After all, the density of water monsters in the lower reaches of the Pontal River has increased significantly in recent years, and any shrewd boat owner knows that a silver sword is far more valuable than an extra hammock on the deck.

The swamps of Velen swell into gaping maws that devour life during the rainy season. Purple miasma lingers year-round among the crooked willows, their roots burying the remains of caravans swallowed by the swamp. Occasionally, when the water level drops, a corner of a gilded saddle or the rusted helmet of an unfortunate knight will be revealed.

A local proverb says, "The road to Velen isn't under your feet, it's around your waist." This refers to the practice of linking companions together with ropes when traversing the swampy areas, so that if someone stumbles into the dark mud, they can be pulled back by their companions. Even so, every week new straw hats float on the surface of the tar-like mud, perhaps beneath which lies the body of some fool trying to take a shortcut to Shaned Island, slowly dragged into the bottomless abyss by the mud.

Only when the harsh winter arrives, and the swamps freeze into ice fields covering withered bones, will the caravan's copper bells ring again on the frozen ground. That is the busiest time of year in Velen, and the busiest season for smugglers.

In contrast, while the Pontal River route incurs heavy tolls, it at least avoids ninety percent of the deadly threats of land travel. Savvy ship owners secretly hoard dwarven spirits in hidden deck compartments—a potent liquor brewed with water from the Mahkan underground springs, capable of burning a line of fire in the throat—worth more than enough to cover all the customs duties on the Novigrad black market. Although the Church of Eternal Fire has banned the trade of all "non-human goods" in Redania, black market prices have ironically skyrocketed as a result.

On the highest east tower of the Château de la Valéry, the Baron's astrologer was said to be able to monitor the entire river's movements through a crystal ball. Merchant ships that refused to pay extra "escort fees" would always "coincidentally" be attacked by river pirates in the most dangerous sections of the river. The Baron's guards would always arrive "just in time" after the river pirates had left, shaking their heads and sighing as they tallied the wreckage.

However, the existence of Witchers once disrupted this delicate balance. When merchants discovered that these freaks with cat-like eyes could scare away most sea monsters and even river pirates, some daring ship owners began secretly reserving beds in the hold. The reason for this secrecy was to avoid being discovered by the fanatical followers of the Eternal Flame that their ship housed a "mutant"—in the eyes of those fanatical religious lunatics, the only difference between a Witcher and a sea monster was probably that the former wore clothes.

However, as the smuggling business grew, the small number of witchers could no longer meet the ship owners' ever-increasing demand for "escorts." Often needing to navigate the waters most teeming with monsters to evade official searches, they turned to recruiting more thugs and outlaws. Some ship owners, whose power had expanded, even established strongholds in the dangerous heart of Velen, resembling local barons.

Velen’s smugglers’ hideout is said to be hidden deep in the moving swamp, with stilt houses made of rotting planks swaying with the rise and fall of the water level.

These outlaws possess a secret path across the poisonous swamp. Their flares, crafted from swamp gas, trace emerald arcs in the darkness, serving as a navigational signal for their companions. To gain the guide's trust, outsiders must win three rounds of Gwent in the tavern and drink an entire bottle of "Swamp Spirit," laced with the brains of a water ghost. It's said that drinking it feels like someone has set your stomach on fire and then scrubbed your esophagus with sandpaper.

In Velen, where survival was difficult, these smugglers could offer far more help than the local lords could. In the Velen countryside, the officials you'd see were mostly tax collectors with a dozen or so soldiers. They would appear whenever the lord was short of money, swarming through every village's granary like locusts, then vanishing without a trace. The rest of the time, the locals had no choice but to consider themselves free people in the Velen swamps, left to fend for themselves.

Leaving aside the potentially arduous journey to Velen, Giryam's trip to La Varedi was relatively smooth. Since the Second Northern War, when most of Aden near Temeria was occupied by Nilfgaard and the remainder was brought under the rule of the Kingdom of Cordwin on the other side of the Ponta River, the number of refugees fleeing to Temeria had greatly decreased, thanks to Nilfgaard's strict laws that kept the farmers firmly confined to the land.

But it was precisely because of the destruction of Aden that the kings of the north strengthened their protection, since the beginning of Aden's demise was triggered by an assassin killing the king of Aden at the time.