"La la la la la la la la la… "
A middle-aged man squinted, shook his head and hummed a weird little tune. The saffron nightgown kept rhythm with his swaying body, like a drunken or epileptic patient.
He didn't seem to notice the witcher who was guarding the door, and walked straight to the blacksmith's door, and then, unsurprisingly, slammed into Leto's sturdy pectoralis major.
The man was shocked like a sleepwalker awakened, his long and thick eyebrows folded.
"What's the matter?" He raised his head.
What kind of face is this? A long greasy dark brown hair was draped casually behind his head, his shoulders were covered in dandruff, he had a unkempt goatee under his chin, a prominent brow bone, a flat, upturned nose, and pointed monkey cheeks.
Roy couldn't help narrowing his eyes, as if he saw an immature curly-haired baboon in red pajamas.
"We should ask you this... Didn't you raise your head to take a look when you came?" Roy resisted a sense of humor and pointed to the sign that said "Closed" at the door, "The store has been closed for rectification recently. No guests, please come back in two days."
"Who said I'm looking for a blacksmith? I'm looking for the guy inside..." The man showed a humane sneer on his monkey face. "I don't do anything after taking my money. It's a serious violation of the agreement! It's clearly written on it!" Money, the king can't take it! You two want to stop me now?"
The witcher's heart was stunned, this should be the creditor in Belengar's mouth, the lunatic. But it won't come sooner or later. Seeing that the two swords of the Snake Sect are about to be completed, it happens at this time to make trouble.
"Don't be impatient, Your Excellency, Belengar cannot rely on your account."
"You are his friends, a demon hunter from a school? Are you planning to pay him back?" The man glanced at Roy, and especially paused for a moment on his neck and pupils.
"I'm Roy the Snake Sect witcher. This is Leto. We and Belengar are barely... friends. By the way, what's your name?"
Roy glanced at the obsidian pendant on the man's neck.
"I am Kalkstein, an alchemist."
The man's voice sounded, and at the same time his personal information was presented to the witcher.
kalkstein
Age: 209
Status: Alchemy Master (He has mastered the pinnacle of alchemy skills: pharmaceutical manufacturing, biology, chemical conversion and magic refining)
Free Warlock (with gentle magic flowing through him, he did not join the Brotherhood of Warlocks)
…
Roy rubbed his temples with a slight headache, and complex colors flashed across his eyes.
This strange-looking old man is not an unknown person. If nothing else, he will have a lot of interactions with Geralt in the future. As a generous alchemist, he even helped White Wolf a lot. But his more distinctive feature is his eccentric thinking, and he has a famous catchphrase—
"Ghouls are cute little creatures that clean up rotting corpses and prevent plagues from breaking out."
It's hard to say simply whether he is a good guy or a bad guy.
He also had some glorious deeds in later generations, such as helping Dandelion to make explosives and blowing up Dikstra's underground treasure house; in the process of being burned on the grill by the wizard hunter of Eternal Fire, his body exploded fireworks and flew into the sky Formed a row of dazzling and beautiful characters - Radovid eats my eagle.
At that time, Redania, under the leadership of Radovid, basically swallowed up Kaedwen in the east, and the limelight and power were the same for a while.
But this guy didn't have the slightest reverence for him.
About Kalkstein, there are many unreliable rumors, such as Alexander, who inadvertently created the banshee while studying the Catriona plague in the rat tower on Fick Island, which is also his pseudonym.
It is best not to offend such a person.
"Tell me," Roy sighed, "how much deposit did that guy charge you?"
"This account can't be calculated like this..." Kalkstein's eyes flashed with shrewdness, "According to Article 3, Item 5 of the agreement, if Belengar fails to fulfill the agreement, then he will pay ten times the deposit, which is almost the same. Two crowns, a lot of money. Are you sure you want to pay the debt for him?"
Roy's lips quickly opened and closed and cursed, "Sorry, such a large sum of money... We can't do anything, and it is even less possible for Belengar to compensate." He took a deep breath, "And I think ten times the compensation ratio is completely unreasonable. , this is no different from loan sharking, a serious violation of local laws in Vizima! Double is acceptable.”
Kalkstein raised his head proudly and shook his head, "Before signing the agreement, I specially hired a notary at the Vizima Court. Don't delay my debt collection!"
Saying that, he bumped into the bald man's pectoral muscles again.
"Can you be accommodating? In two days... not half a day, tonight." Roy gritted his teeth, and after two days, the weapon was cast, so he didn't need to top the cylinder for Belengar, "When he finishes the task at hand, personally talk to you."
"Witchers wear a pair of trousers, why should I trust you? Who knows where he has escaped by then?" Kalkstein said with his hands behind his back, shaking his head, "My time is precious, one hundred crowns an hour. Up and down, there is still a lot of work left in the laboratory, and there is no time to splurge outside!"
"Get out of the way if you don't lose money!"
"Then what are you going to do? Belengar doesn't have that much money to pay!"
Kalkstein suddenly licked his lips, "The witcher's mutant body is resistant to acid, poison, and resilience, and can survive in extremely harsh environments. It is an excellent experimental subject. If he doesn't lose money, he will use his body. Come to pay off the debt!"
"Don't you have a gentler solution."
"There are gentler methods, too..." Calkestein glanced at the witcher, with no deep meaning, "Continue to complete the entrustment in the agreement without any liquidated damages. But obviously, he is busy with the work of the two, and he Don't open..."
The alchemist's tone paused,
"If you are willing to complete the commission on his behalf, the debt will be written off!"
"I knew it! You must have done research before you came, so you've dug a hole and waited for us to jump down?" Roy squinted at the weirdo, but his crazy mind was better than anyone else.
"I won't force anyone." The alchemist held his head high and looked calm.
The two witchers exchanged glances.
Hesitating for a moment between two crowns of indemnity and a commission, or choose the latter, perhaps the commission is not difficult for him
After doing this, Berengar also owed him a favor.
"Let's talk about it," Roy sighed, "Lord Alchemist, what do you need me to do?"
"Before revealing specific matters, you have to sign a non-disclosure agreement with me first."
"Lesso, are you going or me?"
The bald man's amber eyes swept across Kalkestein's "monkey face", firmly remembering his appearance.
"Little devil... Don't sign anything other than the nondisclosure agreement."
"Um."
Roy was also a little curious about the alchemist's mysterious commission, so he followed him out of the blacksmith shop and came to a guest room in a nearby tavern.
Then, an agreement full of dense clauses was placed in front of him.
Only then did Roy realize that the confidentiality agreement in the mouth of the alchemist was not an ordinary agreement with only legal effect, but a magical agreement.
The so-called magic agreement, that is, the magician has cast a spell, and then used the power of the spell to supernaturally bind the signatory. Violating the magical agreement will pay a much higher price than the ordinary agreement.
The same is true of this non-disclosure agreement. Party B who breaches the contract and discloses the content of the entrustment to a third party will have a very miserable end—they will be cursed by magic and turn into a frog for one year.
"Berengar must have signed this non-disclosure agreement before, so he didn't dare to mention the specific content of the debt. It's a nightmare to become a frog! It will definitely be worse than death!"
Roy hesitantly read the agreement several times before slowly signing the non-disclosure agreement.
But he is not sure whether to accept the commission. If the content of the commission is too dangerous, he will never jump into the fire pit.
This magical non-disclosure agreement is also made in duplicate, and one copy is kept by Roy and Kalkstein.
"Very good..." Kalkstein rarely grinned and showed an ugly smile, and the witcher in front of him seemed to be a lot more pleasing to the eye. "Now it's time to get down to business. My commission is simple, and I hope you can find some information for me."
Roy stretched out his hand and looked like he was listening.
"I want you to enter a laboratory near Foltest Castle and find an experiment diary for me."
"Whose laboratory?"
"An exotic warlock,"
Roy looked weird and refused decisively, "I'm a witcher, not a pickpocket from some gang... Your entrustment is beyond my responsibilities... I'm sorry."
"No, even though it's stealing...cough..." The alchemist leaned on the sofa and explained patiently, "but what is most needed is not stealing skills, but guts and steel-like will."
"Because this laboratory has set up a lot of magic traps," Calkestein complained, "it came from the handwriting of Azar Javid."
"Aza Javid?" Roy suddenly realized that after the previous two demon hunters solved the evil god Dagan for Yada, the mayor invited Aza to open the portal to Sintra for them. Roy even used the mixed blood of various creatures to fake witcher blood to deceive the research madman once.
I don't know if the other party has made a name for it from the "witcher blood".
"He's not Vizima's magic advisor?" At this point, Triss had not yet become Foltest's royal advisor.
"You know him?" Kalkstein asked.
"I've only met once, I can't say I know each other, let alone friendship."
"That's good, you can't be soft-hearted at work." Kalkstein began to tell more details.
He and Azar Javid are both scientific madmen living in Vizima. They have similar smells, so they maintain a good relationship on the surface, and they meet every few days to exchange research experience.
However, in the past two months, Azar has repeatedly missed appointments, or is late.
Kalkstein is acutely aware that the other party is doing some important research, or has found a good research subject, and he wants a piece of the pie.
But Azar took a firm attitude, pushed and resisted, and was unwilling to reveal the slightest information.
He hit Kalkstein, a madman who was willing to give everything for his research, unforgivable!
"Aza Javid's recent actions have completely violated the basic principles of scientific research and open communication, and have gone astray. As an old friend, I have the responsibility to correct his wrong thinking."
Kalkstein said solemnly, "But I can't enter Azar's laboratory in person, otherwise the magic alarm will be triggered immediately. The witcher's psychological quality is far beyond ordinary people, and it happens to be the best person to invade the laboratory."
"What kind of robber logic is this, invading other people's laboratories and correcting mistakes? What a shame!" Roy wiped his cold sweat, but he didn't like Azar, the accomplice who would invade Kyle Mohan in the future. , it seems good to be able to block the opponent.
"Tomorrow, once the operation starts, I will find an excuse to ask him out of the laboratory, and then you will use the magic scroll to transform into a cute oriole bird, enter his laboratory, and investigate the experiment diary."
"Wait... I have a problem with my ears? What did it become?" Roy's face was stunned. Sure enough, this Kalkstein is a neurotic, right? Turn people into birds, thanks to his ability to figure it out.
"Don't worry, it's safe..." Kalkstein gave the witcher an ugly smile. "The Oriole is small and can easily evade the magic trap of the laboratory..."
"Stop! This commission is over... I'm not interested in turning into a furry little animal, that's ridiculous, and there's no guarantee of safety!" Roy interrupted the alchemist, his tone changed, "Or, change terms, pay a more suitable offer—a reward that I am happy with.”