The Nose Knows

Exit Kaer Morhen, and examine some hoofprints at the south gate using your Witcher Senses. Whistle for Roach, and follow the horse tracks down the road to the river. Cross the ford heading south, and up the hill, before peeling off to the left (southeast) to an old training folly and treasure chest. A little further up the grassy hill is Eskel’s horse, named Scorpion, standing by a small camp. Inspect the bottles if you wish. Then search the vicinity for Eskel’s footprints, and those of a goat.

Follow the path roughly southward from the camp, checking periodically as you view the tracks in front of you. They stop almost immediately, but inspect a nearby fir tree to find evidence of a goat rubbing itself against the bark. Track the smell along the path that winds up the steep mountain. You pick up Eskel’s prints again, and the soft bleating of his goat. It is tied to a stake in an open grassy promontory to the northeast. Eskel appears, quoting from Adalbert’s book, and greet you warmly. Continue your friendly banter (answer how you wish) until Eskel hears the sounds of an incoming forktail.

A forktail lands close to the goat, and you must both tackle it in combat. After it loses around a third of its health, it manages to get airborne. Optionally plug it with a couple of crossbow bolts, before watching it disappear up a steep mountain gully. Sprint up this gully (heading roughly southeast), climbing a couple of rock ledges as you talk to Eskel.

When you reach the crest in the gully, start descending slowly and use your Witcher Senses to pick out the following:

• Splashes of forktail blood.
• A set of prints and blood on a grassy ledge. This leads into a narrow tunnel—the forktail’s lair.

Head inside, following more splatters of blood, and following the rough tunnel up a natural slope, and around to where the forktail is nursing its wounds. Time to finish it off!

Quest Conclusion: A Gallop Back to Kaer Morhen

After the beast is slain, Eskel instructs you on the method of retrieving the spinal fluid. Answer how you wish, even when the conversation turns to Yennefer’s trust issues. Then gather the fluid and depart. Once outside the forktail’s lair, Eskel challenges you to a race. You can:

• Accept, and make well-timed use of Roach’s gallop and follow the main path down the mountain (northwest), then north along and across the river, and up and around to the south gate of the castle. Stop galloping just after the river ford, then gallop again a few seconds later, and you should beat Eskel, and more than bragging rights are available if you win. Win the horse race to receive additional XP and alchemy recipes.Decline, and make your way back to Kaer Morhen in your own time.

After you reach the south gates of Kaer Morhen, this quest concludes. If you’ve already completed the two other quests (with Yennefer and Lambert), Main Quest: No Place Like Home begins.