Griffin Down

(Potential spoilers ahead, read with caution if you haven't played much Witcher 3)

Geralt fights a griffin.

I finished my explorations of the White Orchard area in The Witcher 3 and decided to take a stab at slaying the royal griffin.  In my explorations I found a lot of handy loot--some decent gear upgrades including a plan for a very nice "school of the viper" steel witcher sword.  The griffin fight seemed to serve mostly as a training type of fight as Vesemir accompanied Geralt and helped slay the beast.  At the beginning of the fight he hands Geralt a crossbow which is not a traditional witcher's weapon.  During the fight you can use the crossbow to fire bolts at the griffin as it will periodically take flight and then swoop down to attack you.  If you land a direct hit the monster will come crashing down to earth and you can fight it on the ground again.  Eventually you wound it and it flies off and you are required to use Geralt's witcher's senses to track it down.  After another brief melee Geralt manages to kill the griffin and can claim the reward from the Nilfgaardians.

Once you arrive back at the Nilfgaardian camp you discover that the captain, who I initially thought seemed kind of nice, is actually a jerk.  He demands grain from a peasant and when the grain is labelled as spoiled he has the poor guy whipped.  So maybe the Nilfgaardian's are the bad guys...  You have to make a somewhat rushed decision about whether to take the gold from them.  I desperately wanted to tell this idiot captain "no," but was severely short on cash.

The crafting system is still seriously confusing to me.  I decided to craft some grapeshot bombs so that I could destroy the monster nests located at different points on the map.  I used up two of my bombs and then discovered there were more nests at a different location and I needed some more.  I headed back to the herbalist to buy some calcium equum but discovered that once you've crafted an item that if you meditate and have certain base ingredients in stock that your consumable items will automatically be renewed.  This is kind of interesting, but a big change from the old crafting system that required you to have a supply of materials on hand to make new potions.  I'm still not sure what base materials you need to have to replenish your stocks.  For potions you need to have alcohol sources and I'm sure that oils require oil or tallow...but I'm not sure about bombs.  I meditated and they were refilled...I guess I had the right materials.  So is hoarding materials other than the basic ones that you need a bad idea?  I might have to read up on the crafting system.

After I had slain the griffin and begrudgingly decided to take gold from the Nilfgaardians, I headed back to the inn to meet Vesemir.  Once inside the inn you discover there is a tense situation brewing between the locals, who clearly hate the Nilfgaardians--most with good reason, and the friendly barkeep lady.  Vesemir tells Geralt that it would be best to stay out of it but can't help but intervene when an angry woman starts attacking the innkeeper.  Geralt then comes to his aid as a group of angry locals confront him.  You then get to slice and dice through a large group of them.  Then, the innkeeper throws you out!  Not only do you have to listen to locals spit at you every time you walk by, now the innkeeper who you just saved tells you not to come back.  As you leave the inn and stand in the courtyard a group of Nilfgaardian soldiers ride up.  It looks like the beginning of a bad situation but a mysterious figure, clad in black and white, emerges from the group.  It's Yennefer, who heard about Geralt's presence in the village and decided to check it out.  She tells him that he needs to accompany her to Vizima to meet with the Nilfgaardian emperor.  A cinematic plays that shows Yennefer and Geralt galloping toward Vizima with their Nilfgaardian escort.  Midway through their ride Geralt sees the weird snow that indicates that the Wild Hunt is in the area.  There is a chase sequence that ends when Yennefer casts a spell to destroy a bridge and knocks the riders of the Wild Hunt into a small ravine.

That's where I stopped.  I'm curious to see what the Nilfgaardian emperor really wants.  I remember from previous games that he seemed like an evil dictator who was bent on world domination by the Nilfgaardian empire.  I'm still confused about whether Nilfgaard are the good or bad guys.

On an unrelated note, the third episode of Life is Strange just came out and I will probably segue into playing it tonight.  The third episode looked much more action packed than the previous ones.

I have a three-day weekend to look forward to and plan to spend some quality time trying to figure out the motives of Nilfgaard in The Witcher 3.