This is a non-commercial fanfic based on the universes of The Witcher and Disco Elysium. All rights to the original works, characters, names, and elements of their respective worlds belong to their respective copyright holders. The author of this fanfic does not claim ownership of any of them. Age rating: rated R (18+). The text contains profanity, alcohol, fictional drugs, violence, and other themes intended for an adult audience.
“When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems longer than an hour. That’s relativity.”
— A joke traditionally attributed to Albert Einstein
NARRATOR – After standing there for half a minute, you too trudge toward the stairs leading to the second floor — when a familiar voice suddenly catches your ear. It’s Kalkstein — scholar, alchemist, and brave captain of the first interstellar expedition. Before him rises an impressive array of empty plates, bowls, and goblets. He breaks into a broad smile and waves vigorously, inviting you to join him.
KALKSTEIN – My friend, you’re rather late tonight! Don’t tell me you’ve been fighting hordes of monsters again, rescuing innocent maidens, and restoring universal justice?
NARRATOR – The scholar chuckles, pulls out a chair for you, then suddenly bellows in a voice fit to shake the rafters.
KALKSTEIN – Innkeeper! More chicken, potatoes, and your finest cheese for men of science! And two bottles of red wine, for we intend to make great discoveries tonight!
VICE [Trivial: Success] – I hope you’re ready… because this night is going down in history. Vizima — maybe all of Temeria — is going to tremble. The Star Brothers are together again, and nothing can stop them now!
NARRATOR – You sit down beside him and return the alchemist’s handshake.
YOU – Greetings, Adalbert! Yeah, it’s been quite a day… We’re trying to get to the bottom of a murder, but the investigation is moving slowly.
KALKSTEIN – I have no doubt, my friend, that you’ll find the culprit. A solution reached through persistence, after countless mistakes and failed experiments, is worth far more than one that simply falls into your lap by chance.
NARRATOR – He raises his goblet solemnly.
KALKSTEIN – By the way, if my modest knowledge can be of any help to the investigation, don’t hesitate to ask.
WHISPER [Easy: Success] – Ask about the laboratories. But be polite and careful. Don’t even hint that you think he might have anything to do with them.
YOU – To be honest, I do have one question related to the investigation… It’s possible the murder is somehow connected to the drug trade. A well-informed gentleman claims there are underground laboratories operating here in the Temple Quarter. Of course, I’m not suggesting for a moment that you have anything to do with them. I just thought alchemists probably know one another, or at least hear about what goes on in their circles. Perhaps you’ve heard some rumors?
NARRATOR – With an elegant gesture, the scholar cuts himself a piece of cheese from the plate Garte has just brought over. The cheese has a sharp smell and is riddled with holes — presumably, both are signs of exceptionally high quality.
KALKSTEIN – Funny… We were talking about this only yesterday. About what happens when alchemy — the noblest of sciences — falls into the hands of ignoramuses, fools, and people utterly devoid of moral principles.
NARRATOR – He pops the cheese into his mouth, but the expected look of pleasure never appears.
SENSIBILITY [Challenging: Success] – His indignation is genuine. To Kalkstein, alchemy is more than a trade — it’s his life’s work, something he genuinely reveres. Watching science be enslaved to base interests is, to him, like seeing something sacred defiled. As though someone had violated his beloved wife.
KALKSTEIN – And yes, pan Beaupré, I am almost certain that such laboratories exist somewhere in Vizima or its outskirts. Though to call them laboratories would be to grant them an honor they hardly deserve. They’re more like underground dens where scientific knowledge is mangled by filthy hands. Unfortunately, I don’t know their exact locations. There are plenty of rumors: people talk about the catacombs, abandoned houses in the southern part of the quarter, and even some secret place in the forest beyond the city wall.
NARRATOR – The alchemist shrugs and cuts himself another piece of cheese — this one slightly thicker than the last.
KALKSTEIN – Forgive me, but I don’t take much interest in such things. I have far too much research of my own to keep track of every talentless hack.
YOU – Yes, yes, I understand… But where do the ingredients for the drug come from? And how difficult is it to produce?
VICE [Easy: Success] – Oh, now that’s an excellent question! Asked purely in the interests of science, of course.
KALKSTEIN – As you can imagine, I don’t engage in anything of the sort myself. However, as far as I know, producing fisstech doesn’t require exceptional alchemical knowledge. Still, it isn’t something you can simply mix up in a kitchen in a matter of minutes.
NARRATOR – For emphasis, Kalkstein raises a chicken leg into the air and brandishes it like a pointer.
KALKSTEIN – Most of the necessary substances can be bought right here in the city without attracting much suspicion. The most important ingredient, however, is the seeds of a plant that grows far to the south. It doesn’t occur in these latitudes, so I’m almost certain the raw material must be imported into Vizima from abroad. Most likely by water, along with ordinary cargo.
CODEX [Medium: Failure] – Hmm… What even lies to the south? Kaedwen, maybe?..
KALKSTEIN – Ergo, if you intend to root out this scourge, you should pay very close attention to the port, the warehouses, and the cargo vessels.
DIALECTIC [Medium: Success] – Sensible. Laboratories can be moved from place to place, but without a steady supply of raw materials, production will eventually grind to a halt.
YOU – Thank you. As I understand it, that well-informed gentleman is quite interested in putting an end to this underground trade.
KALKSTEIN – Well, I’m glad to hear it! In that case, he should be looking not for the cauldron in which the potion is brewed, but for the hand that keeps feeding it fresh ingredients.
NARRATOR – Having finished his thought, he bites a chunk off his improvised pointer.
KALKSTEIN – It really is a serious problem. Take a few days ago, for example. I was gathering certain plants near the city cemetery… You can’t very well ask virgins for help every time, heh-heh…
NARRATOR – The alchemist smiles, pleased with his own joke.
KALKSTEIN – It was well past midnight… I had almost finished my work when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a child emerging from the city catacombs, whose entrance is right there by the cemetery. A small, skinny figure in dark clothes, carrying a large wicker basket. And at that hour of the night!
ARTISTRY [Medium: Failure] – How strange. A child alone in a cemetery at night…
KALKSTEIN – I suspect there’s some underground den down there. Perhaps the little fellow had come to pick up a shipment and then sell it on the streets. Can you imagine the horror?!
DIALECTIC [Easy: Success] – He only saw the figure from a distance, in the dark. His assumption about the person’s age is based entirely on their small stature.
KALKSTEIN – …Well, if I’ve satisfied your curiosity, my friend, I suggest we turn our attention away from such gloomy matters! You need a good rest so that tomorrow you can throw yourself back into the fray with renewed vigor.
RESOLVE [Medium: Failure] – Truth be told, you’re dead tired.
NARRATOR – For the next few minutes, the two of you devote yourselves to slow, thoughtful chewing.
YOU – Adalbert, may I ask you one more rather strange question?..
NARRATOR – Kalkstein keeps working his way through the chicken, smiling contentedly. Somewhere in the room, one of the patrons strikes up a song about a girl from Vicovaro; a few others begin to join in.
YOU – Where are we? I mean — not which tavern or city, but… in general…
NARRATOR – Kalkstein freezes with the goblet in his hand and stares at you in puzzlement for several seconds.
KALKSTEIN – Ah, yes… The amnesia. I confess, I still haven’t quite grown accustomed to the sheer scale of your… forgetfulness.
NARRATOR – He carefully sets the goblet down on the table, wipes his fingers on a napkin, and straightens his cuffs. His face takes on the focused expression of a professor who has just been granted the rare opportunity to explain the structure of the universe to someone who knows literally nothing.
ELOQUENCE [Medium: Failure] – Well, brace yourself. You asked for this.
KALKSTEIN – We are on a vast landmass usually referred to simply as the Continent. Our ancestors arrived here from the west more than a thousand years ago, during an event known as the First Landing.
CODEX [Easy: Failure] – You don’t remember a damn thing. Where did they sail from? And why? Maybe they ran out of food and booze back home. Or someone invented taxes.
KALKSTEIN – By then, these lands were already inhabited by elves, dwarves, gnomes, and many other peoples. Humans, however, with their customary audacity, quickly decided that everything around them belonged to them.
DOMINANCE [Medium: Success] – The natural order of things. Whoever is capable of taking the land later declares that it was rightfully theirs all along.
KALKSTEIN – Still, there’s hardly any point in going into all the wars, migrations, and other sordid business… War, my friend, is the vilest thing mankind has ever invented… I’d rather tell you an old legend.
NARRATOR – He refills the goblets and falls silent for a few moments, holding the wine up to the light. Reflections of candle flames dance in the dark crimson liquid.
KALKSTEIN – They say our ancestors sailed east for a very long time. Where exactly they were going, even they didn’t really know. Their supplies were running low, the people grew weak and began to fall ill… Many no longer believed there was any land ahead at all.
FORTITUDE [Challenging: Success] – First your mouth goes dry. Then your lips crack, your muscles weaken, and your thoughts grow thick and sluggish. A person doesn’t last long without fresh water. Two or three days at most.
KALKSTEIN – And then, one day, after an especially terrible night, the storm suddenly died away. At dawn, the sailors saw a green shore bathed in sunlight. After weeks of fog and dark water, it seemed to them like a land out of ancient legend — a place where suffering came to an end and weary souls finally found peace.
NARRATOR – The alchemist smiles softly.
KALKSTEIN – Then someone uttered the word “Elysium.” It meant something like a blessed land, or a final refuge. That is what the first settlers called this continent.
ARTISTRY [Easy: Success] – A beautiful word. There’s something otherworldly about it — the promise of a place that may never have existed at all.
YOU – But no one calls it that anymore?
KALKSTEIN – Correct. Almost no one. The name survives only in old chronicles, songs, and the works of particularly high-flown historians. In time, people came to prefer a simpler name.
NARRATOR – Adalbert falls silent for half a minute and lowers his head.
KALKSTEIN – Out of shame, perhaps… As I mentioned, it soon became clear that this paradise had been inhabited long before we arrived. And we, having come from across the sea, set about with admirable diligence turning the promised land into the most ordinary kind of hell.
UMBRA [Challenging: Failure] – There it is. The explanation for everything that’s happening.
YOU – Are you saying we live in hell?.. You see, yesterday, when I first came to…
NARRATOR – Adalbert looks at you closely, narrowing his eyes slightly.
KALKSTEIN – …You were trying to understand where exactly you’d ended up? Whether you had died? Whether you’d found yourself in the afterlife — perhaps in hell itself?
YOU – Something like that.
STEADINESS [Medium: Failure] – Saying it out loud feels considerably worse than you expected.
KALKSTEIN – No, pan Beaupré, I don’t think so. It’s just that this world is… steeped in evil. Besides, hell would hardly be this absurd, this badly organized, or this full of people convinced that everything is going according to plan. Though I admit, I can’t be completely certain.
NARRATOR – He says it with complete seriousness. No smile, no drunken bravado, no attempt to frighten you. And that is precisely why his final words echo somewhere deep inside you — dull and heavy.
UMBRA [Medium: Success] – No absolute certainty. What a vile phrase. It leaves just enough hope that you can’t call it a lie.
DIALECTIC [Impossible: Success] – Outside mathematical abstractions, definitive knowledge and absolute certainty are exceedingly rare. Usually, one has to make do with probabilities, circumstantial evidence, and the unpleasant feeling that there is still something one does not know.
YOU – You know, I’ve already given some thought to the nature of evil. I told my companion that perhaps evil doesn’t exist in its own right. That it’s merely the absence of good — just as darkness is the absence of light.
KALKSTEIN – You really are a well-read man, pan Beaupré! I see I wasn’t mistaken about you. Well, it is a venerable hypothesis. And a very… comforting one.
NARRATOR – The alchemist swirls his goblet. The wine coats the inside, tracing an elegant pattern.
KALKSTEIN – In that case, evil is merely an emptiness that needs only to be filled with something good.
NARRATOR – As though to prove his point, the scholar takes a small sip.
KALKSTEIN – There is another theory, however. A far less comforting one, I admit. Much of the evil in this world is committed not by those who consciously choose it, but by people who refuse to choose at all. They stop thinking, stop asking questions, and stop trying to imagine what another person might be feeling.
NARRATOR – Somewhere in the opposite corner, someone lets out a long, thunderous belch.
YOU – So evil comes from stupidity?
KALKSTEIN – Not exactly. A fool is perfectly capable of being kind. I’m talking about willful thoughtlessness. A person follows an order, signs a document, locks a door, looks the other way — and each time convinces himself that he personally has done nothing wrong.
NARRATOR – The alchemist falls silent for a moment, thoughtfully watching a drop of wax creep down the side of the candle.
KALKSTEIN – Take the people who make fisstech. One person grinds the seeds and says, “I only prepare the powder.” Another purifies the solution: “I merely tend the still.” A third mixes the substances. Someone else weighs out the doses, carries sealed packets to the warehouse… Each performs a simple task. No one sees the whole process. No one looks into the eyes of the man who, a week later, will sell the shirt off his back for another dose or die in a ditch.
YOU – But surely they understand what they’re making.
KALKSTEIN – Of course. But knowing is not the same as thinking. They never ask themselves what happens when all those separate actions are put together. Each sees only his own table, his own cauldron, and the few coins he’ll be paid that evening. And if you corner them, they all give the same answer: “I didn’t decide anything. I was just doing my job.”
DIALECTIC [Medium: Success] – So perhaps evil is not the absence of good. Perhaps it is the absence of thought — or a deliberate refusal to think one’s own actions through to their consequences.
KALKSTEIN – The worst evil is sometimes disgustingly ordinary. It consists of countless small, carefully performed duties for which no one is willing to accept responsibility.
NARRATOR – The gloomy subject gradually dissolves into other conversations, the clatter of dishes, and drunken shouts all around you. About an hour and a half later, carrying yet another bottle of wine and the remains of your supper, the two of you settle once more on the broad rim of the fountain beneath the starry sky. Not a soul is around. Kalkstein throws a friendly arm around your shoulders and returns to his favorite subject.
KALKSTEIN – By the way, about our expedition, pan Beaupré… I completely forgot to tell you one rather important thing. As you already know, light from the stars takes many years to reach us. Therefore, the stars themselves must be unimaginably far away. But how long would it take us to reach them? After all, we can’t travel as fast as light…
DEFTNESS [Challenging: Failure] – You’re perfectly capable of that! …Though perhaps not in your current condition.
YOU – M-maybe… magic could give us some kind of incredible acceleration? I mean, the ship… moving through the world ether…
KALKSTEIN – An excellent thought, colleague! Yes, yes, the same idea occurred to me. Magic could accelerate the ship — or perhaps somehow shorten the distance itself. But then an entirely different question arises…
NARRATOR – He suddenly grows somber, lowers his gaze to the bottle, and for several seconds absently runs a finger along its neck.
KALKSTEIN – Suppose we travel at some unimaginable speed and reach a distant star in only six months. But how much time will pass here during those six months? In Temeria, on the Continent… for everyone we leave behind?
CODEX [Impossible: Failure] – Obviously, six months as well. Time is time. It can’t just decide to behave differently for different people.
YOU – Probably… six months too?
KALKSTEIN – A perfectly reasonable answer. I’m afraid, however, that things are a little more complicated…
NARRATOR – He raises both hands in front of your face, sticks out one finger on each, then studies them intently for a while, as though he has only just discovered that he possesses limbs.
KALKSTEIN – Suppose the finger on the left is our ship. And the one on the right is Temeria. As long as they remain close together and at rest relative to one another, time passes at the same rate for both.
NARRATOR – The two fingers obediently remain side by side, trembling slightly. You wait patiently for him to continue.
KALKSTEIN – But if the ship began moving at some tremendous speed… almost as fast as light… then time aboard it would probably pass more slowly.
NARRATOR – His left hand slowly drifts forward. The right, representing Temeria, remains where it is — more or less, since the scholar himself is finding it increasingly difficult to keep his balance.
KALKSTEIN – For us, the journey might take, say, six months. We would reach a distant star, land the ship, raise our goblets, and congratulate one another on our remarkable success. But here…
NARRATOR – He sadly wiggles the finger of his right hand.
KALKSTEIN – Here, while we count off those six months, years might pass. Perhaps decades. Perhaps far longer… I don’t know. As you can imagine, no one has ever accelerated a ship to nearly the speed of light, then come back to report the results.
CODEX [Medium: Failure] – Sounds like complete nonsense. I think he’s had too much to drink. Time isn’t wine — it can’t flow faster for one person and slower for another.
YOU – But why would it pass more slowly?
KALKSTEIN – Er… Perhaps nature simply doesn’t want anyone moving that fast and punishes the impudent fool accordingly?
NARRATOR – He frowns, considering his own words, then raises two fingers in front of himself once again.
KALKSTEIN – No, wait… Imagine a beam of light bouncing back and forth between the floor and ceiling of the ship. While the vessel is at rest, the beam travels in a straight line: up, down, up, down.
FORTITUDE [Easy: Failure] – Up, down… Your head is starting to spin.
KALKSTEIN – But if the ship is racing forward, then to an outside observer the light follows a slanted path — and therefore a longer one.
YOU – But the light itself can’t simply speed up. Probably.
KALKSTEIN – Exactly! Its speed stays the same, while the distance it travels increases. So each trip up and down must take longer from the outside observer’s point of view. And if our imaginary light clock runs more slowly, then every other clock aboard the ship must run more slowly as well. And with them — hearts, thoughts, aging… time itself.
HORRIFIC MEDALLION – Kumpel, my brain’s boiling already! We need to douse the fire with a good swig of booze. Why the hell did you even ask him about this?! We should’ve talked about fistfights or moonshine instead…
KALKSTEIN – It’s only a theory of mine, of course. But a rather disturbing one. Imagine: only six months pass for us, yet when we return, we find ourselves in an entirely different age. Everyone we knew will have grown old or died. Kings will have changed, kingdoms will have vanished… And even the innkeeper will inevitably have raised the price of wine.
NARRATOR – That last possibility seems to trouble him more than all the others.
UMBRA [Easy: Success] – HOLY FUCK. So you could leave for six months and come back a hundred years later?
YOU – And no one here would even remember that we ever left on an expedition?
KALKSTEIN – Exactly, my friend. To them, we would be strangers. Perhaps even the language would have changed so much by then that we wouldn’t be able to make ourselves understood. It would be like… traveling not only through space, but through time as well, you see? Thrilling and terrifying at once.
YOU – Gods… What are you saying?..
KALKSTEIN – Forgive me if my explanation frightened you. I admit, I’ve made myself a little uneasy too…
NARRATOR – The scholar hands you the bottle, as though hoping to neutralize the effects of his own theory by means of a tried-and-tested chemical remedy.
KALKSTEIN – Still, astronomy is my second great passion after alchemy. Perhaps one day I’ll devote myself entirely to observing the stars… And, of course, to preparing our expedition!
YOU – Then here’s to the expedition!
NARRATOR – You take a good swig. The wine spreads a pleasant philosophical warmth through you. For a few moments, the coming journey through the cold infinity seems like an excellent idea again.
YOU – Tell me, Adalbert, what exactly do people mean by the word “universe”? It’s supposed to mean… everything, isn’t it? But if it really is everything… then where does it end?
KALKSTEIN – An excellent question, colleague! The finest minds have wrestled with it for ages. If by the universe we mean everything that exists, then we run into a problem: what exactly could lie beyond its boundary? After all, that “something” would also have to be considered part of the universe.
ARTISTRY [Challenging: Failure] – Uh… what? Everything has to have some kind of limit.
WHISPER [Easy: Success] – Even human stupidity.
YOU – I can’t imagine it…
KALKSTEIN – Hardly surprising.
BOND OF STEEL [Challenging: Success] – Somewhere on a dark street, the guards Jurajda and Janusz trudge along on patrol through the Temple Quarter. A clear, star-filled sky stretches above the rooftops, while mud squelches beneath their boots.
JURAJDA – Kurwa, what a rotten job… Night, cold, feet soaked through. Next thing you know, some Scoia’tael bastard puts an arrow in your arse from the dark, and that’s it… So much for serving the king.
JANUSZ – Hey, Jurajda… How far away do you think the stars are?
JURAJDA – What?!
JANUSZ – Well, they’re up there above us. Loads of them. If they’re far away, then the world must be… really big, right? Maybe even infinite? That’s what some scholar around here says.
JURAJDA – Janusz, what the hell do you care? You’d be better off wondering how big your pay will be at the end of the month. Now that’s a true mystery of the universe, kurwa.
NARRATOR – He props his halberd against the wall and starts unbuttoning his trousers.
JANUSZ – Still, it’s interesting…
JURAJDA – Interesting, he says. Hold the lantern instead, or I’ll end up pissing all over my new boots.
NARRATOR – In the silence of the night, a cheerful little stream trickles away, its bright sound echoing through the entire Universe.
KALKSTEIN – Imagine an enormous anthill. We, as outside observers, can see the whole thing and understand that although it is an entire world to the ants living inside it, it is still finite. Beyond it lie trees, meadows, rivers… But what can an ant know of any of that if it is born deep inside and cannot leave its tunnels? To that ant, the anthill is not somewhere. It is everything that exists.
NARRATOR – For a moment, you imagine a tiny ant condemned to crawl forever through dark tunnels. For some reason, its fate seems profoundly tragic.
KALKSTEIN – With the universe, things are more complicated still. What sort of outside observer could it possibly have? Where would such an observer have to stand in order to see it “from the outside”? Beyond everything that exists? But the phrase itself is meaningless. Wherever the observer might be, he would already be part of the universe.
YOU – So everything, in the absolute sense, can’t be seen as something separate?..
KALKSTEIN – Exactly, my friend. To distinguish one thing, you have to separate it from what it is not. You need a boundary. Contrast. A difference… Or, in mathematical terms — a gradient, pointing in the direction in which something changes most rapidly. Where nothing changes, neither the eye nor the mind has anything to grasp.
ARTISTRY [Medium: Success] – To see an entire building, you have to step outside it. But there is nowhere to step outside the universe.
DOMINANCE [Challenging: Failure] – You could manage even that.
NARRATOR – Kalkstein traces a finger through the air, as though drawing an invisible line between everything that exists and that which, by definition, does not. The line comes out slightly crooked.
DIALECTIC [Medium: Success] – Remember the earlier discussion: good becomes distinguishable only beside evil. Light — beside darkness. …And you — beside people who can still stand on their own feet.
KALKSTEIN – Every definition arises from distinguishing one thing from another. But if what we are dealing with is literally everything, what are we supposed to compare it with? What could we possibly place beside it?
NARRATOR – The scholar raises his index finger once again. It trembles more than before, but the thought it carries remains remarkably steady.
KALKSTEIN – And this gives rise to an amusing paradox. Everything cannot be seen from the outside, while nothing cannot be seen at all. Both concepts elude the observer. Not because they are the same — quite the opposite, they are absolute opposites. But both become inaccessible once the very possibility of distinguishing disappears.
DIALECTIC [Legendary: Failure] – There is only one possible conclusion.
YOU – So… everything is nothing?
KALKSTEIN – No, no, pan Beaupré. That would be far too simple…
NARRATOR – The stars above the square gradually blur. The barely functioning fountain begins to sound suspiciously melodious, while Kalkstein’s reasoning grows ever grander and ever less coherent. A little more of this, and you’ll either comprehend the structure of the universe or fall asleep right there on the cobblestones.
VICE [Easy: Failure] – Maybe time really has slowed down… Or sped up?.. Either way, this bottle emptied much faster than the last one.
NARRATOR – At this point, any coherent account of events comes to an end. You have absolutely no memory of leaving the square, making your way back to the tavern, climbing the stairs, or ending up in your room. Apparently, space and time did undergo some fairly serious distortions after all.