(Geralt and Arivan arrive outside a Niilfgardian military camp, and two soldiers in black armor block their paths)
Soldier: Military camp. No locals allowed without the express consent of the garrison commander
Arivan: We look like locals to you?
Soldier: You look like trouble
Geralt: Dead wrong. We make trouble go away. We're witchers
Soldier: Witchers?... Captain Peter Saar Gwynleve is in the tower. Turn right past the gate
Geralt: Huh. You black ones aren't so scary after all. Can even be nice if you want to
Soldier: Don't get accustomed, nordling
Soldier: To the tower. Go
(Geralt and Arivan walk through the gates, through the military camp, and to the tower)
Peter: How much grain will your village give?
Man: Whatever you say, Your excellency
Peter: Look at my hands. Look! See the calluses? These are not the hands of an excellency, but of a farmer. So we speak peasant to peasant. How much can you give?
Peasant: Forty bushels. There'd be more, sir, but our lads, the Temerians, that is, took from us earlier and...
Peter: You will give thirty, and that will do. Let us settle on it. And I wish to see the transport soon
Man: Ah, thank you, sir! Thank you kindly!
(The peasant man leaves as soon as the two witchers enter the tower)
Peter: I summoned only the ealdorman and the smith, Willis -- but it is said he's a dwarf. You are both too tall to be him
Arivan: Can't argue with your logic
Geralt: Very perceptive of you
Peter: Who are you? Speak
Geralt: Geralt of Rivia. A witcher
Arivan: Arivan. Also a witcher
Peter: Vatt'gherns -- that explains why I did not hear your footsteps. What do you seek here?
Geralt: Yennefer of Vengerberg. Where was she headed?
Peter: That is a military secret
Geralt: Haven't thrown me out yet. Haven't called the guards. So go ahead. What's your price?
Peter: There are two griffins in the area. Slay them, and then I shall see what I can do. The beasts have killed ten people already. Including a few of my men. To hunt them I would need to mobilize the entire garrison, comb the woods, organize a battue. Simply impossible
Arivan: Too big a hassle?
Peter: No. Too high a risk. I cannot disperse my forces. Temeria's army we have crushed, but its common folk remain, ready to answer a call to arms. So as to these griffins, I can sit on my hands...or hire a professional
Arivan: I think you'll be pleased to know that we already killed one. Now we just have to get the other one
Geralt: Some questions first before I start. Know where the remaining griffin has its lair?
Peter: It kept to the Vulpine Woods at first. I sent a patrol there, five young men. A hunter found them two days on. I only recognized them because they wore our plate. Since then, the griffin has grown bold. Attacks in villages, fields, on the main road.
