Chapter Five: What Are You Doing in My Swamp?
We last left Geralt outside a set of elven ruins in Velen, where he discovered something resembling a lead on Ciri's whereabouts with the help of Keira Metz.
PLEASE BE ADVISED: This blog series (obviously) contains major spoilers for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Current Level: 6
Current Location: Elven ruins, Velen, Northern Temeria
We last left Geralt outside a set of elven ruins in Velen, where he discovered something resembling a lead on Ciri's whereabouts with the help of Keira Metz. The encounter ended in her giving him a book about the Ladies of the Wood, also known as the Crones of Crookback Bog. This book explains how to beg for their help should you need to: take a child to the ladies' shrine in the swamp and send them down the Trail of Treats. The Ladies are said to be kind and generous, hearing your plea and ensuring the children will want for nothing ever again. Nice, right?
You've probably figured out by now, if you're unfamiliar with the Witcher universe, that nothing is ever quite as it seems. The Ladies are no different, but we'll get there soon enough.
What did we do?
On my way to the swamp, I hit a few more side quests and points of interest now that I'm the right level for it. The first place I head is Wastrel Manor, where two peasants are anxious that their meager offerings aren't enough for the mysterious Allgod who threatens to bring them hell unless he gets beer and bacon. Geralt agrees to speak to the Allgod and discovers he's a Danny Devito-looking monster who's just greedy and playing on the peasants' desperation. I tell him he needs to get over himself, update the peasants on the situation, and move on to Lindenvale to chat with Dolores, the displaced former resident of Reardon Manor.
Her family manor has been overrun by monsters, and Geralt agrees to help her get rid of them. He heads to the manor and is immediately greeted with booby traps. He decides to investigate the property, where we discover Viper School witcher and Kingslayer Letho of Gulet hiding in the barn. He's been sheltering there since Loc Muinne, on the run from the emperor's mercenaries. Sure enough, there are bounty hunters waiting outside the barn—Letho's contact, Louis, sold him out. I help him take out the mercenaries and follow him to Louis's camp. At the camp, Louis and Letho trade words before we're all trading stab wounds. His giant hammer is pretty powerful, but I make it happen and we ride to Lindenvale to see Arnault Vester, a shockingly hot underworld criminal turned imperial bounty hunter who paid Louis to double-cross Letho. We spot them by their bougie horses and Letho tells Geralt he'll handle this one on his own.
After creating a diversion to draw the men outside, Letho strides over to Arnault and trades some more cowboy words with him before one of Arnault's men shoots Letho with a bolt in the chest. After the fight, he appears dead, and I don't like government lackeys, so Arnault's gotta die. He goes down easy, but Geralt smells something fishy when he examines Letho's body—and it turns out he's still alive, having faked his death with Zanguebarian venom to evade his pursuers. He'd worked with one of Vester's men to set up the plan. Now that his plan failed, he needs to find a new place to disappear to, and Geralt offers up kaer Morhen. Letho is skeptical, but eventually agrees, and the witchers part ways.
Now that I'm a stone's throw from level 7, it's time to visit the Ladies of the Wood. Luckily, it's a quick fast travel to Reardon Manor, where I then ride to Downwarren and start my journey into the swamp. We arrive at the beginning of the Trail of Treats and arrive in the swamp village, where a pack of kids is hanging out outside. Geralt seizes the opportunity to ask if they've seen Ciri. They're quite chatty, even bringing up a Johnny who also resides in the swamp, until a relatively cranky older woman comes out and interrupts the conversation to interrogate Geralt. He tells her that he's looking for someone, but that doesn't get him very far. We'll need to talk to the kids, but she's not going to make that easy, especially after one of the children brings up Johnny again and is ushered promptly into the hut to sit under Gran's watchful eye. The kids will help you lure her out so you can talk to him, but only if you give them something in exchange: they want to play hide and seek. Or for someone to give them sweets. One or the other. I choose the latter and the kids hold up their end of the deal.
Inside the hut, the kid initially won't talk because he fears I might hurt Johnny—despite Gran's insistence, he's not really made up. Johnny supposedly saw a girl who looked like Ciri in the swamp, having been by the village because Gran liked his songs. He hangs out under a nearby tree, and Geralt heads in that direction. I am almost immediately ambushed and killed by three drowners, twice in a row. Not off to a great start here, especially since they're the same level as me and by far not the hardest thing I have to fight in this swamp. A real bummer, considering I love the battle music in this area so much.
The third time around, I make the intelligent if not slightly cowardly decision to roll past the first group of drowners to the main attraction under the tree. and thank god I did avoid them, cause yikes, that water hag was a close call. But Johnny's prints, turns out, lead right through that group of drowners, so I kill them anyway. We follow Johnny's itty bitty footsteps through the swamp to find his burrow, which he crawls out of when called. he's a godling—a creature Geralt remarks there's not many left of.
Johnny's seen Ciri, but he lost his voice and needs Geralt's help to get it back. We follow him, take out some more drowners, and eventually end up below a ravens' nest. On the way, I hit level 7. Johnny gestures that the nest has to do with his missing voice. Once we climb up to the birds, we've almost defeated the last harpy when the game totally glitches out and I have to reload it! Weird, and tbh, kind of wondering if this has anything to do with the weird circling wyvern who somehow didn't see me fighting these birds right in front of him?
Upon reloading, the answer is yes, as this wyvern now very much sees me and tries to kill me, though it is unsuccessful and I retrieve Johnny's voice bottle. He's so happy he immediately yells a bunch of words that are really fun to say and thanks Geralt, before Geralt reminds him that he also said he saw Ciri. Johnny confirms that he did see her briefly, running through the swamp like she was being chased. I take the opportunity to ask about Gran, who Johnny says is no crone, just an old woman who seemed confused. He does suggest, however, that Gran would be more likely to speak to him than Geralt, as she’s wary of strangers.
After taking out some monsters on the way to the swamp village, Johnny happily facilitates a conversation with Gran where Geralt asks to speak to the Crones. Gran staunchly says this is not allowed before Johnny calls in all his favors with her, and she leads Geralt into the weird altar building, stopping in front of a tapestry that she speaks to. She then touches the tapestry with one hand and is immediately possessed by the Ladies, who speak through her (for now). Geralt asks them about Ciri, but they first ask him to rid Downwarren of its beast problem. When finished, Gran hands him "the dagger" as instructed by the Ladies and we're on our way back to Downwarren.
When shown the dagger, the ealdorman of Downwarren explains that an ancient power has recently surfaced near the tree in the Whispering Hillock, and that many villagers lie there unburied because folks are too afraid to go claim them. Geralt heads over to the tree to find a disembodied voice telling us to go away and a giant werewolf on the prowl, which I have chosen to ignore for the moment. I head into the grove the back way, draw from the place of power, and head into the cave. Inside, we get to chat with the heart of the tree, who explains that it's a “spirit” trapped within the tree and just needs to be freed—and it will save the children in the swamp. Won't you help this poor innocent tree demon?
Herein lies Witcher 3 trolley problem number one: do you say "fuck you, tree demon" and indirectly kill a handful of swamp children? Or do you believe the tree demon and put the entire village of Downwarren at risk? Personally, I don't much care for the tree demon, so I hack away at its heart and then throw a bomb at it, and Downwarren no longer has a tree demon problem. Outside, the ealdorman stands by the now-dead werewolf as Geralt informs him that he destroyed the spirit living in the heart of the tree. The ealdorman takes "the dagger," cuts off his ear, and hands it to Geralt. Lovely form of local currency they've got here.
Back at the swamp, Geralt summons the Crones with this guy's ear and they show up corporeally in all their utter lack of beauty. Personally, I can deal with them all but Weavess, the one with the uh... insect nest in her upper face region. The ealdorman’s ear goes on Whispess's necklace of human ears, which is honestly sort of metal, and Geralt realizes that Gran is the baron's wife, Anna. The crones more or less confirm this suspicion, but they also know he's here to talk about Ciri, and it's time for her story.
When she collapsed in the swamp, she ended up in the village, where the Crones didn't realize at first that she was a child of the Elder Blood—blood of the traitoress. Though they summoned the Wild Hunt for her, they want to have just a tiny sample of her special blood before they hand her over. Kinda sounds like those people that eat exotic animals just to say they tried it? Anyway, Ciri dashes out of the swamp as the hunt starts to arrive, evading them and completing the loop on how she came to encounter Gretka. Geralt, having heard the story, promises to find her and come back for the ladies. They "curse" him to never find her with one of my favorite lines in the game: "Now you shall chase shadows and wander midst fog." After they disappear, Geralt's now tasked with telling the baron the lowdown about his wife.
What did we learn?
Alchemy: I’ve never meaningfully been a bomb or potion user (besides the essentials) but I have to say, I'm converted now that they're so necessary. A grapeshot bomb at close range took out the spirit in the tree in seconds.
Death Count (This Chapter): 2
Death Count (total): 26
Killed by drowners in Crookback Bog twice.
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.