Update 14 - Ladies of the Wood



Johnny led me to a nest of harpies, from which he wanted me to retrieve his voice, which for some reason had been stolen and placed in a bottle. I did as he asked, but immediately regretted it because the little shit is annoying. He did have information on Ciri, however, saying that she’d headed to the orphanage I’d just been to. He took me back to Gran and convinced her to take me to the Crones - or rather, got them to possess her so that they could talk to me using her. In return for information about Ciri, they wanted me to solve a problem for them. As always.



I was sent to the nearby village of Downwarren, which had been having problems with some monster, one that, as usual, I was to kill. It made its lair in the Whispering Hillock, where I found an large, fleshy mass within a cave directly underneath a tree. The creature told me that she had been a druid killed by the Crones, who trapped her spirit beneath the tree. She wanted me to free her, somehow. At first I agreed, but changed my mind soon after, and killed the thing.



Finally, I was able to meet the Crones in person, and their appearances were rather unsettling, to say the least. At this point it was also revealed that Gran was in fact Anna Strenger, wife of the Bloody Baron, now bound to the Crones. They told that Ciri had stumbled into Crookback Bog, injured. They took her in, but only so that they could eat her. Upon learning about this, Ciri fled, at which point the Wild Hunt also appeared and entered the pursuit. This particular scene led into the King of the Wolves segment of Ciri’s story, with her escaping but falling somewhere.



Geralt obviously wasn’t pleased to hear this, and made sure the Crones knew that. There wasn’t much else to be done at this point except return to the Baron with what I had learned of Anna. While the Baron was unhappy that I hadn’t brought her back, he did share more his final piece of information relating to Ciri, which involved her saving him from the Basilisk that had appeared at the end of their race in a previous flashback before riding off to Novigrad to find a sorceress.



Following on from that, the Baron told more of his side of the story, revealing that Anna wasn’t entirely innocent. From the sounds of it, both of them were raging, violent lunatics. Pretty much made for each other. At least the Baron is repentant for his actions, not that it excuses or redeems any of them. Against Geralt’s advice, the Baron said that he would take his men to the swamp to save Anna from the Crones, and so I felt obliged to go and help him at some point. Suddenly, there was a random scene involving some Maisie Williams creature running into the room squealing which I guess will be important later.

With that, my destination now appears to be Novigrad, although I’ll probably stay in Velen for a bit and get some more side quests done, get my level up and whatnot.

Nioh is superior, I'm afraid.

i dont listen to people who think bioshock infinite is good

Quote from: Fedorekd on January 26, 2018, 11:17:03 AM

Quote from: challengerX on January 26, 2018, 11:14:05 AM

Nioh is superior, I'm afraid.

i dont listen to people who think bioshock infinite is good

Why were you so quiet when our teammate recommended Bioshock Infinite? Because you know it's a good game.

i was left speechless that someone would have the AUDACITY to say that something i dont like is good

You killed the tree... But what about the children? You monster.

no one's gonna miss em

When I met the tree, I didn’t feel like I knew enough to make a decision until I remembered something I read about a lady in the woods

I picked up a book really early in the game titled “She Who Knows” and it basically said that this all powerful god went mad and caused the citizens of Velen to go crazy

Her daughters (the crones) killed her and imprisoned her beneath the tree

I didn’t like the prospects of freeing some bitter angry god so I that’s why I needed up killing her

Really cool detail in my opinion

what a quest

the jenny o' the woods was a pain in the ass

Update 15 - Loose Ends



As mentioned before, I've spent some time finishing off some side quests and Witcher contracts in Velen. I've still got a couple more things left to do before I head up to Novigrad, but I'm very nearly ready to head off. Notably, I wrapped up the Keira and Bloody Baron side quest chains.



Keira Metz sent me to Fyke Isle, to investigate a curse. Everyone there was dead, and there were rats everywhere. At certain points I would find ghosts which would show me some of what happened here. Eventually I found the ghost of a young girl, Annabelle, whom had been abandoned by her lover, Graham, who believed her to be dead when peasants came to kill everyone on the island. I brought Graham back to the island to lift the curse. This resulted in him dying, but at least he was with Annabelle now and there would be no Plague Maidens escaping the island.

After performing another favour for Keira, she invited me out for dinner, but this turned out to be a trick, so that she could get a hold of the research notes found at Fyke Isle and bring them to Radovid, in the hopes that he might spare her. I haven't met Radovid yet, but all I've heard of him is that he's some kind of nutter, so I convinced Keira to head to safety at Kaer Morhen instead.



Finally, I returned to help the Bloody Baron get his wife back. At Crookback Bog, we found Tamara and her witch hunter friend Graden, we all ended up having to fight some massive beast sent by the Crones. Anna had gone crazy after losing the orphans (a result of me killing the thing beneath the tree earlier), and so the Bloody Baron decided to take her away to find some healer who could possibly cure her madness. I guess this is the last time I'll see the Baron. When I returned to his castle I found that his Sergeant had been left in charge, and was allowing his men to murder, rape, and pillage the civilians. Damn.

Aside from that, I've been doing some Witcher Contracts like the Jenny o' the Woods and the Shrieker. These missions are alright, if a bit formulaic. The bosses are sometimes fun but doing too many of these in a row gets repetitive.

omw to meet best girl wbu

Fix some statues too

the priscilla bit was a really nice scene tbh

Triss > Yennifer by the way

Quote from: Mardy Bum on March 15, 2018, 01:15:59 PM

Triss > Yennifer by the way

this is true

I’m going to stick with Yen tho
Since Gerald likes her for whatever reason

Yen is a high maintenance roastie that would drop you for nilfgaardian cock at the snap of Emhyr's fingers.