More than half of the main questline inThe Witcher 3: Wild Huntis devoted to searching for Ciri. Geralt travels across the Northern realms and even journeys as far as Skellige — all for a chance to see Ciri again. When he finally does, it’s an emotional moment. The old Witcher finally gets to see his adopted daughter again.
While the scene itself already does a good job at eliciting emotions from the player, the achievement that pops up is the icing on the cake. After completing “The Isle of Mists” quest,The Witcher 3achievement “Something More” is automatically rewarded to the player. For book readers, it’s the perfect name for it.
RELATED:The Witcher 3’s Indefinite Next-Gen Delay Could Be a Gift And a Curse
‘Something More,’ a Short Story in The Witcher Books
“Something More” is a short story inSword of Destiny, which is the second short story anthology inThe Witcherbook series. Before delving into what happened in the story, however, it’s necessary to provide a bit of context. In the first book,The Last Wish, Geralt helped Queen Calanthe and her daughter, Princess Pavetta, resolve a complicated issue. Following this, the Witcher invoked the Law of Surprise. Not long after, Pavetta revealed that she was pregnant, meaning that Geralt’s child surprise was to be Pavetta’s future daughter, Cirilla. Because Geralt invoked the Law of Surprise, he and Ciri were now bound by destiny.
Fast forward to the events ofSword of Destiny. Geralt has already metCiri inThe Witcherbooks, who is around 10 years old, but it was a completely chance encounter. The old Witcher didn’t want a child, and so he denied the Law of Surprise and left Ciri in the care of Mousesack, Queen Calanthe’s advisor. After all, he didn’t believe in things like destiny, claiming, “I know that in order to unite two people, destiny is insufficient. Something more is necessary than destiny.”
Now, in “Something More,” Geralt has since left Ciri and, during his travels, comes across a merchant with a broken cart named Yurga. The merchant pleads forGeralt’s help inThe Witcherbook, but has no money to pay the Witcher back. This leads Geralt to invoke the Law of Surprise again, and he protects Yurga from an onslaught of monsters but is gravely wounded in the process. Once it’s safe, Yurga gets help and loads Geralt onto his now fixed cart, promising to get him a healer.
The rest of the story is divided into sections wherein Geralt dreams before waking up and momentarily speaking to Yurga. These dreams reveal to the reader some of Geralt’s past actions, such as his relations withYennefer throughout the books, as well as conversations with both Mousesack and Queen Calanthe about destiny. The most notable one, however, involves Geralt traveling to Cintra to get Ciri. Long after Geralt left the child surprise, he learned of the oncoming Nilfgaardian assault and wanted to save Ciri from it. However, after learning that Cintra was now in ruins, he gave up on his quest, believing that he was too late, and that Ciri was dead.
By the end of the short story, Geralt wakes up from his dream-filled sleep and finds himself in Yurga’s home. The merchant explains that he has two sons that Geralt can claim, but the Witcher refuses. Yurga’s wife then comes out and explains that she adopted an extra child — an orphaned girl. To Geralt’s surprise,this young girl was Ciri, who immediately runs to the old Witcher and embraces him, shouting that she was his destiny. Geralt simply replies, “You’re more than that, Ciri. Much more.”
This short story is what makesTheWitcher 3achievementof the same name so meaningful. In “Something More,” Geralt finds Ciri completely by chance, suggesting that destiny had a hand in bringing them together again. InThe Witcher 3, however, Geralt refuses to leave the fate of his adopted daughter to destiny, choosing instead to travel the world in search of her. When he finally sees her alive again, it only proves that while Geralt and Ciri were always bound by destiny, the old Witcher had that “something more” that was required.
The Witcher 3: Wild Huntis available now on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
MORE:The Witcher 4 Will Have a Harder Time Replacing Ciri Than Geralt
