Chapter Eleven: Access Novigrad
You may remember from our last chapter that Novigrad is starting to look an awful lot like my tragically small hometown, in the way that everyone who can help us with our quest is connected.
PLEASE BE ADVISED: This blog series (obviously) contains major spoilers for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Current Level: 12
Current Location: Sigi Reuven's bathhouse, Free City of Novigrad
You may remember from our last chapter that Novigrad is starting to look an awful lot like my tragically small hometown, in the way that everyone who can help us with our quest is connected through some kind of elaborate thread we've yet to finish following. Underworld boss Francis Bedlam helps us find Triss, who helps us find an oneiromancer, who informs us that Ciri contacted Dandelion, who is also missing! Our only lead on his whereabouts comes from his crush, Priscilla, who explains that Dandelion was planning to rob other underworld boss Sigi Reuven, and that he got mixed up with other other underworld boss Whoreson Junior. Whew, you got all that? Good, because it turns out that Sigi Reuven is also Sigismond Dijkstra, former head of Redanian Intelligence! This one's gonna get wild, lads. Let's go.
What did we do?
Lucky for us, our good friend Dijkstra is willing to give Geralt the information he needs about Whoreson Junior, an underworld boss who's been linked to the missing bard Dandelion, who's been linked to Ciri, whose third cousin’s sister’s hamster died last week (kidding about that last part, but good lord with these six degrees of separation). Dijkstra explains that Whoreson had areas of the city where he was strong: a casino, an arena, and a house on Temple Isle. He's not likely to be home, but maybe he's at the casino or arena. I'd love to get some extra XP and money, so I head to Cleaver first and offer to help his men raid Whoreson's properties. (Sidebar, I love that his cronies are called henchdwarves.)
With Cleaver spoken to, we're on our way to meet the dwarves near Whoreson's strongholds. First, at the casino, we have a few close calls, but ultimately slice and dice all of the henchmen with the help of the dwarves. On the top floor of the casino, one of Bedlam's men is imprisoned and wounded. His name is Rico, and he clues Geralt into a connection between Whoreson Junior and the Redanians before taking off. There is honor among thieves, it seems, as Rico also tells Geralt that Bedlam will reward him for the favor of freeing his spy. I'll come back to that later; we have an arena to raid. This goes pretty poorly for me, and it started so good! I felt like it was manageable until I got stuck in a room full of henchmen and all the henchdwarves that were supposed to help me had been killed. Ouch.
Our second attempt inside the arena goes a bit smoother (though not without some scares), and we also find arena boss Igor's secret stash, where the real treasure is a letter absolutely chewing Whoreson Junior out on behalf of Radovid for not killing the rest of the Big Four yet. On my way out, I discover an absolutely extraordinary Glitcher moment I can't help but document: this henchdwarf that never made it into the arena is standing at the threshold, staring down the passageway, as if to watch over his three dead friends inside.
I pop over to Cleaver for my reward, and he insists that despite not finding Whoreson, he's still likely to show his face, since he'll be mad about the raids. I head to the square to sell some loot, pop north for a beard trim, and then head back to Dijkstra to rat out Whoreson and his Redanian ties. Dijkstra doesn't think it's especially smart of Whoreson to partner with Redania, but does admit it would explain why he broke with the Big Four. Geralt presses him, an actual former Redanian spy, for a Redanian contact and Dijkstra informs him that the contact is actually a mutual friend: Vernon Roche, commander of the Temerian guerrilla army. He's got a hideout outside of Oxenfurt, and we should pay him a visit. Onward we quest!
Vernon Roche has fashioned himself and his forces quite the chic little cave hideaway near the mean herbalist's hut, and is happy to see Geralt because of my answers in the palace at Vizima. Roche's subordinate of unspecified rank, Ves, wants to go save a village awaiting a Nilfgaardian raid, but he tells her no and shoos her away. Onto the matter at hand, Roche goes on to tell Geralt about his remarkable luck—he'll be on his way to meet his Redanian contact soon. We're instructed to meet him at the bridge in Oxenfurt and head on our way over there.
Roche's contact is waiting for us in the chess club outside of Oxenfurt—a building that is suspiciously guarded by both Redanian guards and witch hunters. Inside we find King Radovid V the Stern, playing chess with...himself? He talks a lot about the strategy of chess in a clearly allegorical (and concerningly realistic) way and asks Geralt a series of questions he's supposed to answer wrong.
After Radovid has a little temper tantrum, we cut to the chase: does this bratty little man in a crown know where Whoreson Junior is? In the first helpful thing he's done so far, he does. Whoreson also keeps a residence in Oxenfurt, and he regularly brings women in. Radovid does the nice little favor of telling us in exchange for a favor of his own, to be redeemed later. As for Roche, he asks for a favor of his own, regarding Ves—won't we come see him a his camp?
For now, though, our priority is finding Whoreson Junior. Outside his house, there's no sweet-talking the guards, but they're easy to take out. At some point inside, I hit level 13, but either way, the courtyard cronies also aren't much of an issue, along with the men inside the house. Upstairs, we discover...well, a pretty bleak sight: this disgusting dude kills the women he hires to have sex with! Geralt is as horrified as I am and is very physically unkind to Whoreson, a.k.a. Ciprian Wily, before explaining to him why we're really here. Wily volunteers that Ciri did contact him to get her phylactery fixed, and that he had demanded Reuven's treasure as payment. Now it's time for the first chapter of Ciri's Novigrad story.
Ciri is outside of Wily's Novigrad residence arguing with Dandelion. Their friend, the doppler Dudu Biberveldt, is being held inside the house, but Dandelion says it's dangerous to go retrieve him. Ciri insists, and climbs along the rooftops and through a window into Wily's house, where she discovers him brutalizing Dudu. She draws her sword, and I'll admit it: this is a fight I was very worried about.
I manage decently at first, with Ciri finally gaining the Blink ability, which lets her use stamina to quickly teleport behind enemies and strike (sometimes multiple times) from the rear. I did okay with Wily and his first three henchmen, but the next group took me out easily, and I died two more times after that. I remember this being brutally hard more than one time when I played this game, and I remembered correctly. With some solid resolve and focus, I finally get through the house and finish Ciri's story for now.
Back in the present, Wily swears Ciri is alive, having escaped the house. Geralt lays into him for his bad behavior and Wily begs for mercy. I always kill him anyway because it has decent consequences down the line. Having now dealt with him, we owe Priscilla a visit—but first, Radovid has plans for our immediate future. We head with the Redanian guards to his ship in the Oxenfurt harbor, where he tells us that he's looking for sorceress-at-large Philippa Eilhart. There's evidence that she had a hideout somewhere nearby, and his witch hunters aren't getting too far with their investigation. Radovid would like Geralt to go out there and help in exchange for his help with Whoreson Junior.
Reasonable enough, but I have other things I want to do first. What I really want is to get going with the hunt for Sigi Reuven's treasure (and Dandelion, by proxy). I pop by the bathhouse to ask Dijkstra about Dandelion's whereabouts. He seems to have no clue about the heist, instead assuming that Dandelion has met his end courtesy of Whoreson Junior.
Dijkstra is awfully prickly, Geralt remarks, before Dijstkra informs him that he's got other matters on his mind. But once he resolves those matters, he might be inclined to ask after Dandelion...hint, hint. Geralt agrees to help and the two head down to his secret vault, hidden underneath the tub in the private room. This game always makes me realize that my life is entirely too devoid of secret passageways.
Down in the vault, Dijkstra discovers that his guard troll, Bart, is banging his head into the wall as punishment for...well, Dijkstra's getting there. First, he points out the gaping hole in the wall between the vault and the sewer. Then he gestures to the vault itself, which was once full of treasure and is now clearly not. Geralt confirms that the thieves entered through the hole, which Dijkstra is less than amused by, but Geralt is more interested in the cause of the hole.
Bart explains it, ish...there was a big explosion that blew the entire wall, and Bart passed out because of the highly poisonous mold spores in the sewer, which the thieves somehow made it through. Dijkstra hands Geralt a mixture to repel the poisonous mushrooms, and Geralt heads into the sewer. His investigation reveals that a bomb blew the hole in the wall—one that smelled like wyvern oil and caramel. It’s shaped like a silver cylinder and has runes etched into it.
Geralt brings Dijkstra the bomb shell and presents the rest of his findings. Since the blast debris suggested that the bomb was dropped into a drain, we head out to check the baths. The boys split up and Geralt finds more evidence—wyvern oil floating on top of the pool and a silver cylinder bottom matching the bomb debris. Happen the Eunuch drains the pool, brings in the ledger, and tells us who used the tub on the day of the bombing. This list includes margrave henckel—no, wait, says Dijkstra! He's literally dead! He died in a brothel getting his freak on and no one knows about it yet! But Happen swears he saw him—it must be an impersonator, according to Dijkstra. Look into it. Fortunately (?), that job falls to us, and we head off to Henckel's house, right next to where Cleaver keeps his base. But that's a story for a different day.
What did we learn?
Fighting as Ciri: The Blink ability is definitely going to come in handy. I need to make sure I’m watching my stamina so I can use it as often as possible, though.
Alchemy: As I start to dip more and more into the potion side of alchemy, I am finding it more and more useful. I know I’ve said it repeatedly, but damn, how did I play this game for so long without this stuff?
Death Count (This Chapter): 4
Death Count (Total): 36
Surrounded by henchmen in Whoreson Junior's casino
(as Ciri) Killed three times by henchmen while trying to escape Whoreson Junior's house in Novigrad.
NOTE: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the intellectual property of the appropriate copyright holders, including the screencaps from the game I have included in this essay. I have no official affiliation with CDPR or anyone else associated with the game/books/universe; I’m just a fan who plays Witcher to cope.