So I stumbled upon my first Leshen on top of hill behind some abandoned manor. It was one of the new monsters that were highlighted during the early days of TW3 reveal. This one is much smaller that the one in the ads but it is a Level "??" monster. I don't know what that means but I do know that I was killed within seconds of drawing my sword. I forgot that their primary attack is shooting roots out of the ground.

I'm still Level 5 but I decided to try and kill the monster. I quickly learn that it's easier to hurt it with dash-and-slash attack on horseback only to discover that at 50% health the Leshen called for allies in the form of Level "??" Wolves. I fought on and after a number of tries and one trip back to town to get better gear I finally have the upper hand, my Level 5 Witcher is about to deliver the final death blow to a Level "??" monster.

My final two dash-and-slash attacks missed but it doesn't matter. The Leshen disappeared, leaving only a mutagen, a piece of timber and a resin for me to loot. There was no indication of me killing it, no screams or gurgle of death, no new Bestiary for me to read. I was baffled.

I studied the video I recorded and saw the Leshen got absorbed into a tree right after my supposedly second death blow missed. 3 hours of battle and the monster just wussed out on me?

I found a Leshen too, when I was lvl5 or 6, and ran the hell away from it. Fighting those monsters might be cool, but I'm not stupid, and I don't want to die countless times again. It already happened to me with a werewolf in a contract.

I don't know about the Leshen, but when an enemy's level reads "??" that means it is very, very high compared to yours. Something like 10+ levels higher.

It's like an itch that I really need to scratch even though I know it's a bad idea. Not far from the Lechen encounter is a village where I killed some bandits but is now infested with a Level 14 Alghoul and a number of Level 13 Devourers. I killed a couple of the devourers when my Geralt is still Level 3(or 4?) but the Alghoul was overwhelmingly fast, tough and strong so I left them alone for now. I avoid most high level monsters because they usually traveled in packs, especially Nekkers. I avoided the Wyvern mission atm because there are two of them. This werewolf I keep hearing about seems to be a particularly nasty customer, too.

This Leshen, however, is solitary so I wanted to see how much time and effort I would throw in to kill it. Had there been a couple or more of them I would certainly run away. When it called for fellow Wolves to fight me, I was surprised but after a couple of tries I exploited their erratic behaviors. The wolves were a menace for the first couple of encounters. Then I noticed they would simply disappear when chasing me and leave the Leshen that called out for them alone. So much for vicious guard wolves. At one time they stumbled into group of Nekkers and ended up getting killed themselves.

At least the Leshen didn't called out for a pack of man-eating Snow Hares that inhabit the cave near the soothsayer's village. Not even a group of knights would be able to stand up to one of those.