No good deed goes unpunished in the cynical world of The Witcher. Crossroads of Ravens opens with our young hero, Geralt not-yet-of-Rivia, about to be punished for the crime of rescuing a peasant father and daughter. Multiple authorities take him to task for daring to play hero, all for entirely self-serving reasons, until an older witcher named Preston Holt steps in to save Geralt and position himself as the boy's new mentor.
Crossroads of Ravens begins as it means to go on. Chapter two opens with a description of a peasant standing in fresh cowshit to keep his feet warm. It's a book about the mud and muck of its medieval world, one that jams its characters into moral quagmires as well as physical ones.
