I finally gave in and reinstalled The Witcher under XP, and things do seem to be more stable now. Good thing I decided to keep this system dual-boot after all. Anyways, chapter two starts off with Geralt in prison…

After playing dice with an elf in there, I had to fight another prisoner in a fistfight for the right to go out and hunt down a cockatrice for my freedom. I got dumped in the sewers and met a member of the Order in there, who accompanied me and help out. The sewers weren’t that big, so it didn’t take long to find the cockatrice, and it was a fairly easy fight, aside from its annoying tendency to knock me down. I found a key to a cultist area down there, but I’ll come back to it later, since I imagine I’ll find out more about it as I go on.

After getting out of the sewers, I stopped by a detective’s place and learned more about the Salamandra, and the plot turned into a bit of a mystery, with several suspects in town regarding the disappearance of Berengar. Upon trying to leave, I was attacked by assassins, but the group fighting style made short work of them.

I got my stuff back from the prison storage locker, bribed a guard to let me into the hospital to talk to a prisoner in there, and was attacked by yet more bandits. These were apparently sent by someone else in town, opening up new suspects in the mystery. And while I was in the hospital, I noticed I could donate to the altar there, and only a couple items were highlighted as being valid donations, including a loaf of bread. I donated it, and got three symbols of some kind, similar to one I found in the sewers, though I don’t know what to do with them yet.

I finally headed to the inn, only to find the person I was looking for (Coleman) dead. While there, I won some more money in fistfights (which are really easy if you just alternate between blocking and attacking), and playing dice with a couple patrons, including a professional that I won a few hundred orens from.

And, of course, there are women. Near the inn, I took on a quest to help protect three ‘ladies of the night’ from bandits, but I won’t be able to do that until sundown. I went back to the hospital and found Shani there, and she invited me back to her place in the evening to talk further. And there was a town gossip wandering around, and she was easily wooed with a pair of gloves, leading to another card in the collection.