The game tells the story of Geralt of Rivia, who at the opening of the game is tasked to cure the daughter of King Foltest of a curse which causes her to transform into a feral monster, introducing the player to the nature of witcher-work.
The initial cutscene shows Geralt's quest to cure her by surviving a night in her presence. Geralt captured the traitor who cast the curse and uses him as bait to attract the striga (the monster Adda turns into) and, in the battle that ensues, manages to scare the striga away with magic. Geralt then goes into the sarcophagus where she sleeps and shuts her out. The next morning, he finds her as a human. When Geralt reaches out towards her, she opens her eyes - which are the eyes of the Striga - and claws at his face. The scene goes dark.
A period of years mysteriously passes, ending with Geralt being transported to the witcher stronghold of Kaer Morhen by fellow witchers who had discovered him unconscious in a field. Geralt remembers almost nothing of his life before that point. He is taken to Kaer Morhen, the base of the witchers, where he meets a sorceress named Triss Merigold. The castle is attacked by a gang of bandits named Salamandra, led by a criminal known as the Professor, a mage named Savolla who controls a large, praying mantis like monster, and another mage named Azar Javed. The witchers and the sorceress manage to slay the monster and kill Savolla, but the Professor and Azar manage to escape with the mutagens that genetically alter the witchers.
Geralt overlooks Vizima's dilapidated cemetery.After curing Triss of the wounds she received while fighting Javed, Geralt and the rest of the witchers head off in different directions in order to find information on Salamandra. Geralt heads south to Vizima, capital of Temeria and where King Foltest reigns. He goes to the outskirts, where he meets a magically gifted child called Alvin and an old friend, Shani, whom he does not remember. He finds out that Vizima is in quarantine, and learns about a conflict between the Knights of the monster-slaying Order of the Flaming Rose and the Squirrels, a gang of guerrilla freedom-fighting elves, dwarves, and other non-humans. But, by doing favors to some important officials, either saving or condemning a witch, uncovering a conspiracy between Salamandra and those officials, either sparing or slaying most of the town, and killing a giant ghost-like hound, he gets a pass and prepares to enter Vizima only to be arrested.
He awakes in a jail where he volunteers to kill a Cockatrice in the sewers in exchange for his freedom. In the sewers he meets a knight of the Order named Siegfried, who not only helps him kill the monster but also directs him to a private eye who can help Geralt defeat Salamandra. Geralt spends the rest of part II chasing Salamandra. He investigates a murder, which leads him to believe that a mage is leading Salamandra and, if he combines the right clues, uncovers that this mage (Azar Javed) has killed and replaced through disguise the private eye Geralt is working with. When instructed to open an ancient tower in the swamp to find a powerful book, he can either use this knowledge to confront Javed there, or, if oblivious, is ambushed and robbed of the book before the final fight of the chapter, in which he is knocked out as Javed and the Professor flee.
Geralt awakes in the personal chamber of Triss Merigold, in the rich quarter of Vizima. The rest of the chapter is spent uncovering the bases Salamandra has in Vizima, and finding out more about Alvin's powers and visions. He also begins uncovering another conspiracy concerning forgeries of the royal seal. During a party of high-standing officials, Geralt meets Adda, who offers to have sex with him. Whether he accepts or declines, he finds letters in her chamber connecting her to Salamandra and she also either hints at the connection or his medallion shakes, which means that he is in the presence of an enemy.
Geralt finally attacks the base of Salamandra in Vizima with the help of either Siegfried and the Order or the Scoia'tael. During the fight Javed separates Geralt from his allies, but Geralt presses on and duels the Professor, which eventually leads to him being eaten by the queen of the Kikimores which the Salamandra had "tamed" to use for their purposes. Geralt causes a cave in, crushing the giant spider-like creature and its offspring as he escapes. Outside, he finds himself surrounded by royal guards and Adda, who declares that she still has to kill him in order to conceal her treachery.
However, Triss teleports him out of the situation and to a village on the other side of Vyzima Lake. There, Geralt and Dandelion find some unsteady peace while taking care of Alvin, helping with problems surrounding an ill-fated wedding and negotiating between the village and the inhabitants of an aquatic city. At the end however, the conflict between the Order and the Squirrels catches up with them and threatens the village. The player can be neutral, at the cost of leaving the inhabitants to their fate, or finally take the side of either the knights or the non-humans. The scared Alvin mysteriously disappears in a flash, in spite of a medallion he received from Triss that should dampen his (uncontrolled use of) powers. After this, Geralt and Dandelion decide to sail back to Vizima.
There, the Foltest has finally returned and retaken control of his castle, but at the same time civil war has broken out. The Squirrels have caused an uprising which the Order of the Flaming Rose responds to by killing non-humans with little discern. Depending on which side Geralt took in the previous battle, he can either be neutral and help the wounded get to hospitals with Shani, or help the knights or the elves in the battle. He also cures Adda once more from a relapse of the striga curse (or slays her), after which the grateful king discloses clues about Azar Javed's location. Storming a hidden base with his allies, Geralt finally kills the evil mage, but also learns that the Grand Master of the Order also betrayed the king, since he is the real mind behind the Salamandra's mutation program.
With most Knights of the Order and their mutants now entering open rebellion, the king again turns to Geralt with a contract to kill the Grand Master, while also asking about what to do with the various factions. Depending on which side Geralt took in the first battle, he can convince the king that the Order, under Siegfried's rule, can still be loyal, convince him that the Squirrels are right, or convince him that they are both enemies. Consequently he either takes Siegfried (Order), Yaevinn (Squirrels), or Triss Merigold (neutral) with him on the hunt for the Grand Master, encountering either Yaevinn, Siegfried, or both, as enemies on his way through the war-torn city.
Geralt enters the Order's citadel alone after having to leave his wounded ally behind (or using a ruse to keep Triss out of danger). Inside, the Grand Master tries to convince him of the necessity of his "greater plan", telling Geralt how the prophecies said that the world would eventually be consumed in ice, and the only way for humanity to escape that is to go south. Only for this, so he says, he stole the mutagens so he could make superhuman bodyguards to protect humanity on their journey. When Geralt does not believe him in spite of some oddly familiar points of view, the Grand Master casts an illusion of this future and the witcher finds himself in an icy wasteland. Unimpressed, he hunts the Grand Master, running into several ape-like monsters that humans will supposedly devolve to, and meeting some of the characters he helped (or crossed) throughout the adventure. At the end, Geralt kills the Grand Master and, after a revealing encounter with death itself, escapes the illusion. Back in the Citadel, he is left with the unsettling discovery that the Grand Master, now dead on the floor, is wearing an aged version of Alvin's anti-magic medallion.
In the ending cut scene, the king pays Geralt and the witcher walks away. But suddenly an assassin attacks the king. Geralt duels the assassin and kills him. When he pulls off the mask, he discovers that the man has vertical pupils, just like the witchers, setting the stage for The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.
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