Chapter Seven: A Side of Quests
In order to really finish out the baron's questline, I need Geralt to be just a bit...beefier.
PLEASE BE ADVISED: This blog series (obviously) contains major spoilers for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Current Level: 8
Current Location: Fyke Isle, Velen, Northern Temeria
After our research-based turned romantic tale involving Keira Metz and Fyke Isle, we can now return to our quest for the baron. Except in order to really finish out his questline, I need Geralt to be just a bit beefier. And in order to build that beef, I need some side quests. I tried to make up for the fact that this chapter is mostly grinding by choosing some favorite quests.
What did we do?
First thing’s first: let’s follow up with Dolores. You may remember her because her manor supposedly was infested with monsters, but was really inhabited by Viper School witcher Letho of Gulet. She’s grateful to us for clearing that up and directs you to some hidden money in her barn—florens, so they're useless to me now, but will pay off soon. I also tried to take out some nearby monster nests and had a close call with the first round of nekkers before I was eventually clawed to death by them. Try again later.
Let's head north instead, to a bandit camp and hidden treasure. There's a lot of very burned bodies in Mowshurst, where the treasure is. I’ve been using bombs more and more at bandit camps that have a barrel of spirit; it’s a pretty solid guarantee of taking out at least one of them. I’m liking bombs quite a lot; can't believe I never really used them until now.
Now let's go to Lurtch, because I kind of love it there. It's a nearby village where, upon Geralt's arrival, he discovers three bandits spit-roasting a pig. This is much to the dismay of Yontek, a man from the village who is currently mourning said pig's death. I killed the bandits easily and talked to Yontek, who's still very beside himself that Yagoda the pig has been cooked. Once Geralt starts chatting with him, Yontek reveals that the other inhabitants of the village have been overtaken by "piggy magic," at which point Geralt offers to check over the pigs. Indeed, Geralt's medallion vibrates like a plug-in Hitachi, confirming that the pigs are enchanted. In our next chat with Yontek, we learn that the pigs used to be humans and that he needs help turning them back. Yikes, explains why he was so broken up about Yagoda.
The villagers were turned to pigs by magic after being given the key to the hog hut, a.k.a. my favorite place in Velen. It's not far down the hill, according to Yontek, so we set off on our way. A ways to the east, past a swarm of nekkers, we make it to the hog hut, which at first glance is a cave guarded by bandits. Inside the cave, there are more bandits and the makings of an underground crypt or temple. Yontek's key opens a portal, behind which there are, in fact, pigs. Geralt's medallion tells us that they're pigs from the village, and the pig's snort at Geralt’s trademark thinking out loud tells us that he understands Geralt. It's time to interview our witness, with one oink for yes, two oinks for no.
We get a really lovely view of the pig's ass while Geralt figures out that this pig is Igor, the village herbalist, and that we are inside a temple. We need to to look around some more. The giant hog statues seem to hint at the temple's namesake, and there's a big, mostly-empty pot of gold in front of the head hog in charge. There's also evidence that a group of humans dragged something heavy out of here. I go and chat with Igor again, giving him a snack before asking him what happened to the gold—does he know? Igor says no, and Geralt knows what happened now. It's about time we talk to Yontek now, since the gold in the hut was clearly stolen by greedy villagers, but protected by a curse.
On the way back to Lurtch, I realize I haven't distributed character points at all recently and now have 6 to spend. My current setup is fairly solid now, though I need to dig into the alchemy abilities at some point because I'm not as familiar with them. I'm very close to being able to acquire and activate Undying, which will be a huge help moving forward. Back at the village, wolves are after Yontek, which I easily cut down with a delightfully more efficient fast attack. Once rescued, we ask Yontek about the curse, including the whereabouts of the cursed gold. Yontek admits that he’s hidden it, being unaffected by the curse because he didn't go with the villagers to steal the gold. But if it's returned to the hog hut with all the pigs present, the curse can be lifted. Yontek heads to his gold-hiding spot while we round up the pigs. (Sidebar, I really like the game calling them "cursed pigs" in the quest objective.)
We escort Yontek and the herd over to the hog hut successfully…after being killed by nekkers twice first. After that, Geralt and Yontek take off at a brisk clip to the hog hut, where the gold is returned and the villagers become human again, thanking Geralt profusely. Geralt claims Yontek helped in the task of freeing them, but the villagers argue that it was Yontek who gave them the key, knowing the gold was cursed. In the past, I've let him live because I felt bad for him, but I'm kind of hard-up for money, so I'm gonna take the coin and let the villagers hang him. Sorry, guy. I promise it's only under these circumstances that I can justify capital punishment.
After finishing up in Lurtch, I wander the points of interest along the coast a bit, beginning with getting revenge on the endrega warrior that almost killed me before. As mentioned, I'm really just trying to get myself into a good place level-wise before the next big chunk of story, because I know what's coming. The grind itself isn't terribly interesting, but I do know it to be necessary. I set a goal of level 10 (or at least solidly level 9) and continue onward. We had some close calls with pirates on the Coast of Wrecks, but ultimately came out unscathed and with good loot. Got some more alchemy formulas filled out, too.
I realize haven't done a contract in a while, so how about we do one? At crow's perch, Chet tells us about his shrieker problem. This monster mostly goes after livestock, but it's not above humans either, as evidenced by the entire human they found dead at the hands of the monster. According to Chet, the victim's son saw it all unfold. The kid is out behind the hut and, as expected, pretty traumatized over the whole thing. After hearing his story, which ultimately isn't super helpful, we leave the boy and his hyperactive goats be and head to the site of the attack.
On our way there, we encounter Ronvid of the Small Marsh, who's committed to killing a hundred men in duels to honor his beloved, the unfortunately named Maid Bilberry. And wouldn't you know it? We're lucky number one! He puts up nothing resembling a real fight before forfeiting, but says next time, he'll be ready. I promise him that next time, I'll kill him—this is some weird behavior on Ronvid's part and I refuse to encourage it.
At the attack site, Geralt discovers irregular tracks along with a trail of monster blood. The trail leads to a cave that contains no monster, just a really disturbing amount of skeletons. Geralt deduces that the beast is a cockatrice, which tracks with the village kid's description of a reptilian bird monster. We smoke the cockatrice out with a bomb and it's time for real monster chasing hours. The fight proves to be pretty easy, especially with the generous aid of alchemy items. I’m growing pretty used to playing this way and I like it. I made it to level 9 during that fight, making my goal very much within reach.
We return to Chet with the trophy after a brief monster nest detour. I want to be a cheapass here, because instinct is telling me to, but I also have a decent amount of coin right now and feel guilty always taking the money. So Chet gets to keep the coin for the kid, even though I'm probably going to regret it later when I don't have that coin. The XP gain was mostly what I was after, and I got it, so on with the grind we go.
Next on my list is Forefather's Eve, which is a dear quest to me because I love the quests where people die angry and haunt the living. On the island, the pellar sits in front of a giant fire in the stone circle I didn't explore my first time here because of what direction I came in from. He's surrounded by a mob of peasants and asks Geralt if the ritual can begin, with our job being to protect the pellar and the crowd if monsters appear during the performance. Sure enough, drowners and a water hag appear and promptly take my ass out six feet from the pellar himself. Oops. My second attempt at protecting the ritual's participants goes a bit better, and we learn more about the pellar's real reason for completing the ritual: summoning his dad, who he may not have killed. The pellar asks Geralt to find his father's body in the swamp and burn it, which we do. We head back to the grateful pellar, who offers us a generous discount on supplies from here on out.
Onto a contract: Woodland Beast. The Captain of the Guard at the Redanian border post speaks of a beast that's been attacking soldiers. We head to the site of the attack where Geralt examines the scene and discovers something fishy—among other things, the tracks leading away from the attack site appear to be humanoid.
Geralt follows the tracks to discover a tucked-away camp of Scoia'tael elves. Their leader promises to stop attacking the soldiers and gives us a bevy of gifts. The Captain of the Guard, of course, is less than pleased and does not give us the reward or the promised Letter of Safe Conduct. This brings our side of quests to an end, as there’s only so much grinding I can reasonably put into a chapter before you all get bored.
What did we learn?
Nekkers: Holy shit, nekkers are fast as hell on this difficulty. Staggering a few of them with bombs can help, but I've gotta be pretty on my game in terms of reflexes to make sure I don't get destroyed.
Water hags: Similar to crossbow guys, it’s important to take them out early if i’m fighting a group of drowners and one wanders in—or at the very least, keep them mostly immobilized/incapacitated with Igni or bombs. Those projectiles are no joke.
Death Count (this chapter): 4
Death Count (total): 30
Ambushed while trying to destroy a nekker nest by Reardon Manor
Killed twice while defending Yontek from nekkers on the way to the hog hut
Ambushed by drowners and a water hag during Forefather's Eve ritual
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.