Chapter Fourteen: Kind of Like Senior Year, But Make It Life or Death
We are far from through with the Free City, still needing to collect some cards and go to a ball...but also fight with a shady gwent card reseller and smuggle a young mage out of trouble.
PLEASE BE ADVISED: This blog series (obviously) contains major spoilers for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Current Level: 16
Current Location: Isolated Hut, Redania
Last chapter, we tied up the loose ends related to our quest for Ciri in Novigrad. But we are far from through with the Free City, still needing to put together a big performance, collect some cards, and go to a ball...but also catch a murderer, fight with a shady gwent card reseller, and smuggle a young mage out of danger. We'll handle the latter two on today's episode.
What did we do?
We head back to the Rosemary and Thyme, but before we can even talk to Dandelion, we see that Zoltan is being hassled by three men outside the inn. Zoltan plays it cool, but drops that act pretty quickly once they walk away. You see, Zoltan owes the King of Beggars some money, and he took up selling rare gwent cards to pay him back. However, he's got some established competition in that arena named Duke, and Duke’s not exactly thrilled that Zoltan is stepping on his business. He suspects he can get the cards he needs to finish off his collection and sell it from Zed, but the guy won't talk to him. That's where we come in.
At Zed's, the door is locked, leading Geralt to believe he's inside and in trouble. We sneak in through a door on a higher floor and discover a dead Zed and two bandits looking for his ledger. We take them out and find the ledger hidden in a chest below the stairs and one of the three cards on a bandit's body. We then head back to Zoltan to make sense of the ledger. He asks after the other cards once we give him the Isengrim card, paying little mind to the entire dead cardseller I just found.
He also recognizes the names of the other two cards' buyers: Caesar bilzen is Cleaver's clerk who rarely leaves his tacky house on the main square, and Ravik (or Ravvy) has a less than stellar reputation—as well as beef with Zoltan, so we'll be heading there alone before meeting Zoltan at Caesar Bilzen's place.
At the golden sturgeon, we discover that Ravvy has both bad luck and a bad haircut. The thugs from outside the Rosemary are harassing him, with his life hanging on the outcome of a gwent game played on his behalf by...me. Oh man. I don't want to sacrifice the guy, but I need you to understand that I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO PLAY GWENT. I didn't play card games growing up and the logic of it truly just does not click for me. So really, I feel like it's kinder to just own up to the fact that I will not be playing gwent for this dude's life and get straight to the bandit slicing. Thankfully, it seems he's just thrown himself on the ground, and offers us the card as repayment for his life.
When we arrive at Bilzen's place, we learn from Zoltan that our mission is to raid his collection of rarities and oddities. Caesar is very much a fisherman, as advertised, and that's the primary topic of conversation around the bottle of mead…until Zoltan sends Geralt off for a new bottle. upstairs, I remember that Caesar's house is home to one of my other favorite Glitcher moments AND another secret passageway, with possibly my favorite hidden key in the game.
In the curiosity room, Geralt finds not only the Fringilla Vigo card, but also another magic statuette AND an absolutely wild assortment of Nilfgaardian trophies. As we go to pull Zoltan from the conversation and get out of here, two henchdwarves barge in and start yelling at Caesar. Despite being kind of a right wing asshole, he doesn't deserve to be chopped to death by henchdwarves, so Ii intervene. Caesar is beside himself but thankful, and Zoltan and Geralt head off to sell the cards.
Unfortunately, Duke seems to have gotten to Zoltan's buyer first, and his men surround us. Duke makes a run for it with the money and Zoltan tells Geralt to go after him while he handles the guys in the courtyard. We engage in what is probably the weirdest chase scene in any video game I've ever played (I mean seriously, the number of ladders you climb RIGHT AWAY) before we find Duke bleeding on the ground in the sewers. Geralt recovers the coin, and I let Duke go, assuming he'll bleed to death in the sewer. Pretty fitting death, imo. I choose the coin over the cards as my reward, and Zoltan now owes me one.
Our next stop is Triss's place to decompress the second statuette: a soldier. We head to her secret decompression chamber again and this time, the soldier only speaks Nilfgaardian, and his last memory sounds eerily like the last statuette's, except that he was in battle when he was compressed by the same sorceress, Coral. After advising the soldier to find Ambassador Var Attre, Triss goes home again. On my way back to her house, I take a detour to sell some hoarded loot and visit Corinne and Sarah, now living together in the "haunted" house.
Back at Triss's house, she explains her dilemma: high society lady Ingrid Vegelbud is prepared to donate a chunk of change to the fund to help the mages escape Novigrad, but she needs a favor from Triss that can only be discussed in person. Geralt offers to scope out the scene for her at the fish market, where she's supposed to ask the servant in a blue jerkin for his price on trout. After deducing that this kind of ridiculous plan was obviously created by Ingrid herself, Geralt heads off to the fish market to find the blue-jerkined servant. He's a bit annoyed that it's Geralt standing in front of him and not Triss, but accepts our presence as an unchanging aspect of this situation and follows along.
Around the corner, a group of bandits are waiting for us, and after I slice them up, the servant asks after Triss again, and lights her up when she arrives because she was supposed to come alone. Thankfully, she reminds him that Geralt saved his ass, and we both ask him to get to the point. It seems Ingrid's son Albert has taken an interest in alchemy and is at risk of persecution now. It's not hard to see where this is going. Ingrid will help Triss and the mages escape novigrad if Triss arranges safe passage for Albert, who will be ducking out during a big masquerade gala that Ingrid is throwing to distract everyone. Triss is thrilled to attend, and Geralt insists on going with her.
Going to the ball comes with the catch of having to wear a mask and a doublet (*Geralt groan*), which we have to pick up from Elihal along with Triss's fox mask. I've also decided to go all out and make sure Geralt's beard is trimmed, because I'm going to do something I've never done before: romance Triss. She looks very nice in her outfit once we arrive back at her house, and we head off to the estate. At the gate, Geralt gives up his weapons, and we're delayed a few times by various men in the courtyard on our way to meet Ingrid.
After a brief exchange, Ingrid tells Triss and Geralt that Albert is making the rounds at the party like he usually does, so as not to arouse suspicion. When it's time to go find him, he'll be recognizable by his panther mask. We find him quickly and tell him to meet us later, after which Triss suggests waiting in the garden on a bench. We enjoy a cozy moment with her before she heads off, giggling, into the garden's hedge maze, stopping to walk on the lip of a fountain. she predictably falls off and Geralt catches her, and we share a brief kiss before Albert arrives to meet us. Geralt and Albert switch masks in case he was followed, and we wait a spell before leaving the maze.
On our way out, we're stopped by a lover of Albert's who mistakes us for him, and then a group of witch hunters challenging us to a fistfight. It takes a minute, but I beat them and head out of the maze to the stables. Ingrid is there as well, and mentions she was worried we took so long. Geralt suggests she send someone to clean up the garden, and she heads off. Triss says her first goodbyes, as the money from Ingrid is enough to finally get the mages out of Novigrad. She alludes to leaving soon, and that we know where to find her to say goodbye. She and Albert ride off.
When we return to Novigrad, the Temple Guard stops Geralt at the gate and demands his pass—another letter of safe conduct from the Church of the Eternal Fire that we obviously don't have. Luckily, another guard strolls by with a pass in hand for us, with regards from Sigi Reuven. Blech, but okay. We wander around for a few other errands and once again run into Ronvid of the Small Marsh, who's mad that we never revealed ourself to be a witcher. We fight him and his friends and actually beat him...before mistaking a witch hunter for a member of the fight and getting quickly annihilated by him and losing all of our coin. Ouch. Not quite a death, but I feel like it counts as one.
Triss's house is surrounded by guards, and her landlords aren't on the ground floor, both of which aren't great signs. Upstairs, Triss's landlords hassle her for more money, and I say nothing. She hands over her necklace and they scurry away. Triss is upset that it's come to this, but explains that they deserved the necklace, because things have gotten worse in Novigrad. The hunters have started searching house by house for mages, and Triss needs to move now on getting everyone out. The hunters are moving faster than she is, and her plans are all falling apart—she needs to get the mages to the ship down at the docks, but two of her friends are missing. Even if they were there, though, the mages would still need safe passage to the docks, so Geralt will need to clear a safe path to the sewers.
Here comes another trolley problem: should we go help Triss's friends, or go straight to the inn so that the innkeep doesn't die? I usually save the innkeep, and since I'm already breaking with tradition by romancing Triss, I'm going to save Anisse and Berthold. Triss is on board, but insists that we have to go now, since there's not much time to get everything together. We take out the hunters in front of her house before going on our way. Inside the hideout, witch hunters harass Berthold, Anisse, and their hosts. As soon as they see that Geralt and Triss are here, they spring into action, but I slice them up pretty easily. Berthold and Anisse have to be persuaded with Axii to come with us, but happily follow after that.
At the kingfisher, the hunters are already inside and have killed the innkeep, but we take them out quickly. I did like the innkeep, so this was more of a bummer than I expected it to be, but Triss mentions that it's no time to mourn and continues on to...the secret room! A novigrad staple! Triss takes attendance while Geralt converses with Dijkstra, of all people. Triss rallies the mages and explains the plan, then heads with us to the sewers while Dijkstra goes to the port to ensure everything is in order there. We make our way through the sewers, initially blocked from moving any further until Geralt notices air from behind a wall and discovers a library that lets them pass through.
Next, we discover a rat feeding ground, mostly corpses that were disposed of by Cleaver, as Geralt points out we're beneath his lair. We encounter few other issues until we reach the Katakan in the tunnels, but even that is pretty easy to beat, and the XP pushes me to level 17. Not long after, we hear seagulls and rush out to the docks. Dijkstra is irritated by how long it took us, but there's not much time for that, with the ship boarding and hunters approaching.
We take out the hunters and Geralt professes his love for Triss. Dijkstra commends us for trying and starts to tell us his story with Philippa. He's nearing the end when Triss returns and takes Geralt away to have lighthouse sex. We're not quite finished here, but I’ll let us end on the note of Geralt and Triss in love at the top of a lighthouse, sending "morse code signals" to a passing ship.
Death Count (This Chapter): 1
Death Count (Total): 44
Beaten to unconsciousness by a Novigrad witch hunter after mistaking him for part of the group I was fighting.
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.