haven't played this in a couple weeks. got a bit distracted when i went home for the holidays. iirc I'm onto the stuff about finding Whoreson Junior.

Update 17 - The Big Four



Before getting into trouble with Whoreson, Dandelion had been planning a heist of someone called Sigi Reuven, another crime lord. I met him at the bathhouse, where it was revealed Sigi was actually Sigismund Dijkstra, a man with whom Geralt had dealt before. He was accompanied by the King of Beggars and the fourth crime lord, Cleaver. There was little time to talk, however, as a bunch of assassins entered the place, and so we had to fight them off naked.



After the fight, I was given three possible locations to find Whoreson in - his mansion, casino, and arena. My first stop was the casino. I think I fucked up here, because I was given three Gwent players to play against. I won against the first guy, but I didn’t really want to play another two games so I simply asked the second guy if Junior was around, which triggered all the guards to attack me. I’m not sure if that would have happened anyway but oh well. Junior wasn’t there but I found one of his debtors, a halfling named Rico, tied and beaten. He told me Junior made a deal with the Redanians, information that Dijkstra might be interested in hearing.



On my way to the arena I was attacked by some bandits. One of them was carrying them a certificate allowing them to fight in it, and so I used that to get in. The first guy I fought, I spared, which turned out to be a great decision as he helped me in the fights afterwards, and was probably the most useful AI companion I’d had in the game so far. Once I’d finished fighting, Whoreson Junior himself came to congratulate - and kill - me, but luckily Cleaver’s men were invading the place at just the right time to allow for my escape. Unfortunately, my new friend died helping me fight off Whoreson’s men. RIP Gustav Roene, you were a good friend. On my way out I found a secret stash, containing a letter about Junior’s deal with Radovid to kill the other crime lords.



I relayed this information to Dijkstra, who sent me to talk to Vernon Roche, who was hiding in a partisan camp near Oxenfurt. Roche was an old friend of Geralt’s, apparently, and was willing to help, allowing me to go with him to meet a Redanian contact in Oxenfurt, who turned out to be none other than Radovid himself. He seemed like a nutter, but was helpful in that he told me where Junior was hiding. I went to the Oxenfurt mansion and found Junior, surrounded by several women’s corpses. After some roughing up, Junior came clean as to what his dealings with Ciri were…



There was another Ciri segment. She and Dandelion had made a deal with Junior, and their end of the bargain involved bringing him Sigi Reuven’s treasure. When they failed to uphold their deal, Junior kidnapped their doppler friend, Dudu, and so my job as Ciri was to rescue him. I ended up having to fight Junior, where I found out that Ciri had this cool ability to charge up an attack on multiple enemies. I defeated Junior and helped Dudu escape, but Dandelion was captured and imprisoned. Back as Geralt, I left Junior to face his fate now that the other crime lords knew of his treachery. On my way out, I was intercepted by Radovid’s men, who brought me aboard Radovid’s ship for an audience. He’d helped me, and now it was time for me to return the favour.

I'm not really digging this part of the game
Lots of characters and side plots thrown in all at once
Quite confusing

A lot of it feels like people Geralt knows from previous games showing up for a few minutes and then disappearing again. idk if that's reasonable based on the old games because I haven't played them but they feel like weird cameos.

Novigrad itself is nice though, but the main quest doesn't seem to be utilising it fully.

The crime lord segment is by far the weakest part of the game. There's also a haphazardly constructed quest involving Djisktra that you can easily miss, which if you don't pick up on, omits an entire new storyline later on involving Radovid, which I think is kind of bullshit. CDPR obviously dropped the ball on this portion of the game.

Once you get to Skellige the game becomes kino again though.

One of the characters is named Dudu

Update 18 - Treasure Hunt



Radovid wanted me to find Philippa Eilhart, a sorceress who’d escaped his grasp, but not before he had her eyes gouged out. This guy seems like a bit of a prick, and not the kind of guy I’d want to help out, but I looked into it anyway. I searched some nearby elven ruins, only to find not Philippa, but a damaged crystal from her megascope. Rather than go to Radovid, I took the crystal to Triss, and found that Philippa was trying to restore her eyesight and reform the Lodge of Sorceresses. I told Radovid that she had died before I could reach her, although he didn’t believe me.



As I was in the area, I decided to go see Roche, as he had a quest for me. One of his soldiers, Ves, was planning to attack the Nilfgaardians against his wishes, and so he needed me to help him to prevent the attack. We arrived just in time to save Ves, who wasn’t happy at all when Roche reprimanded her. We spared one of the Nilfgaardian officers, which I’m guessing will have consequences later, perhaps.



Returning to Novigrad, I spoke to Dijkstra, asking him if he knew where Dandelion was. He had nothing for me, but offered to look into it if I could find out who broke into his vault. After some searching through the sewers, we found that someone impersonating a deceased Margrave Henckel had flushed a bomb down one of Dijkstra's baths and used it to break open the vault. At Henckel’s home I discovered that Caleb Menge, Commander of the Temple Guard, had captured Dandelion and taken the gold himself. Using Triss as bait (with her consent), I bribed my way into the Witch Hunter compound for a meeting with Menge. I found out that Dandelion was being held in the dungeon under Temple Isle. Before I could learn anything else, Triss freed herself from the torture room and killed Menge. On Menge’s corpse we found a key to his vault, which I gave to Dijkstra later on for a reward. Before leaving and burning down the compound, Triss asked Geralt to come and visit her at some point.



The plan now was to lure Dudu out of hiding, as I’d need him to pose as Menge in order to release Dandelion. Returning to Priscilla, she had the idea of writing a play to attract Dudu, and work in a hidden message to convince him to come out. I chose for the play to be a comedy in the end, which ended up being a good decision. Geralt delivered his lines beautifully, the audience loved the play, and Dudu himself came forward and agreed to help me free Dandelion.

wtf triss's quest has me putting on a fox mask

who do they think i am, xsean?!

yeah but unlike Sean you'll get the chance to kiss a girl

Update 19 - Evacuation



While Dudu was posing as Menge to negotiate Dandelion’s transfer, Zoltan and I were preparing to ambush the convoy. The ambush was a success, save for a lone witch hunter taking Dandelion away on horseback. I caught up with and killed the guy, and got more information from Dandelion. He and Ciri had been escaping Whoreson’s men, only to land themselves in greater trouble when they pissed off the Temple Guard. While Ciri was able to teleport away, Dandelion was captured, leading him to this point. Completing this quest meant that I was finished with the Novigrad portion of Act I, finally. Was certainly a slog at times, but I feel like it picked up towards the end. Next up was Skellige, of course, although I had some things to finish up in Novigrad before moving on.



Triss had received a strange message from Lady Vegelbud, saying that she was helping sorceresses escape the city, in return for a favour from Triss. It wasn’t entirely trustworthy, so as a precaution it was Geralt instead who met the contact. Lady Vegelbud’s son, Albert, had taken an interest in alchemy, which caught the attention of the witch hunters, and so needed to “disappear”. To create a distraction, the Vegelbuds were hosting a ball, during which Triss and I found Albert and helped him to escape.



Back in Novigrad, the lockdown was in full effect, with witch hunters going door to door, taking any mages they found. Triss was in the midst of her evacuation, but was missing two. We found them and took them to the meeting location, from which we’d clear a path through the sewers to the docks. Along the way we fought a “katakan”, which was pretty annoying to fight because it regenerated health fairly quickly. We finally made it, and the mages were on their ship headed safely away from the city. After some final interactions with Triss, Dijkstra, who had assisted in the evacuation, approached me, asking for my help in overthrowing Radovid, a request I gladly accepted. I kind of wish the main quest had involved more of this plotline as these quests were a lot more interesting.



I met Dijkstra, and found that one of his co-conspirators was Roche. The other accomplice was not there, however, and it was my job to find him. Turned out the spy, Thaler, was posing as a cobbler, and had been kidnapped by trolls who wanted him to make them their own shoes. I managed to get him out of there without bloodshed, and sent him on his way to continue plotting. I suppose this’ll come back to me later, but it sounds like shit’s going to go down at some point.



Dandelion wanted Geralt’s help in putting together a cabaret for Priscilla. This was a fairly lighthearted quest, and I was expecting it to end with the performance going on as planned, but things took a dark turn, when Priscilla was brutally attacked by a serial killer. This set me on a somewhat lengthy quest where I had to track down her attacker and put a stop to the murders. It ended up being a vampire, who was specifically targeting individuals who blasphemed the Eternal Fire and who was working as a coroner at the same morgue his victims were taken to. I certainly wasn’t expecting this quest, but I enjoyed it a lot.

Update 20 - The Masked Man

Finally, it was time to leave Novigrad and make my way to Skellige. The ship I was taking there was attacked by pirates, and Geralt was thrown overboard to be washed up on a Skellige beach. One of Skellige’s residents told me that Yennefer was at the town of Kaer Trolde, and so I made my way there. When I got there, the people of Skellige, and Yennefer, were in the middle of a funeral for the deceased king, Bran. I filled Yennefer in with what I had learned in Velen and Novigrad and she told of her findings. A recent disaster had struck Skellige, and she suspected that Ciri was behind it, but had not been allowed to the site of the incident to look for evidence. Crach, the Jarl of the clan an Craite, invited us to a feast to commemorate the king, to which we accepted.



At the wake, we were approached by Cerys, daughter of the Jarl, who challenged Geralt to a race up the mountain. Naturally, I won the challenge which seemed to piss her off. After that detour, Yennefer led me to the druid Ermion’s secret laboratory, looking for the “Mask of Uroboros”. We came across several obstacles: hallucinations, an earth elemental, and a room full of gas, but we managed to get the mask out of there in the end. After the feast, Crach approached us and offered to convince Ermion to let us investigate the disaster area. However, he asked some favours of us too, ones that I would get back to at some point.



I later found Yennefer at the forest, arguing with Ermion about the mask she had taken. While she went off to look around the area, Ermion told me about the myths surrounding the mask. He was interrupted by a huge storm and a mist suddenly covering the forest. While he tried to control the weather, I went and found Yennefer, who gave me the mask. I used it to look into the past and see what had happened there. Ciri and a companion were chased through the forest by the Wild Hunt. She cast a spell, causing the disaster, and fled through a portal to Velen. Ermion caught up with us and claimed that the Wild Hunt had been to the smaller nearby isle of Hindarsfjall, where they had destroyed a village, Lofoten.



Once at the isle, I spoke to survivors of the attack, who confirmed that both the Wild Hunt and Ciri had been there. However, the only person who could tell me where Ciri went, Craven, had gone off to fight a werewolf only to not come back. We went up to a nearby sacred grove and, after fighting off the beast, found Cravel - or as he was actually called, Skjall - dead in a cave. Yennefer reanimated his corpse, and forced him to tell us what happened.



Skjall had met a mysterious masked figure carrying Ciri from the sea. He left her in Skjall’s care at Lofoten, telling her to meet him at a particular location when she was well enough. After some relaxation in the sauna, Ciri was about to leave with Skjall on horseback when the Wild Hunt attacked. As Ciri, I had to fight them off, then later escape them by horse. We found the masked man, who took Ciri away and left Skjall to pass out from his wounds. When he awoke, Skjall saw an incredibly ugly creature - the same one I’d seen back at the Baron’s castle in Velen.



The Skellige chapter felt a lot shorter than Velen or Novigrad, but that may be because I did it all in one go without stopping to do side quests. Anyway, this means I'm done with Act One of the game after 48 hours of playing.

Skellige side quests constitute like a quarter of the game. My advice would be to go back before you progress any further, otherwise you're opting out a huge chunk of the game and will be pretty boring to go back to if you advance past the level bracket. There's a really kino political quest line where you decide who the new Skellige Jarl will be.