Overcoming The Power Of Love And Longing

Enter the hut, which appears to be inhabited, but is currently empty. Begin a quick sweep of the area:

• The hearth has a small cauldron of ingredients, but none you can identify.
• The preparation table against the window has two books, one of them banned by the Conclave of Mages!
• The right side of the table has some bones ground into dust.
• To your right on a small table is parchment regarding proper administration of Yarrow; worth gathering for an optional read later.
• On the far wall is an animal skin. You pull it off the wall to reveal a strange scratched pentagram; with spell enhancements (or trophies?) nailed to different points around the circumference. Inspect each, one by one:(Examine arrow) An arrow broken in half, possibly to bring bad luck.(Examine branch) From a gravevine, to ensure a good or bad harvest.(Examine kerchief) Silk, monogrammed “D.F.”, and useful to break the curse if it belongs to Daphne. Pick this last, as you’re greeted by the owner of this hut once you inspect the kerchief.(Examine doll) This looks like an accessory for casting curses.

When the kerchief is taken off the wall, the witch of Lynx Crag reveals herself to you. She asks what you are doing in her home, and quickly informs you the curse of the bleeding tree is almost impossible to be undone. You can optionally ask what happened to Sir Gareth the knight (it transpires he was seduced and killed by the witch), and you are left with three choices to make regarding the lifting of the curse. You can:

Tell the witch you’ll lift the curse yourself. This leads to Path #1.

Plead with the witch to lift the curse. This option only appears if you’ve read the book on fairy tales and know that the witch respects humility. This leads to Path #2.

Threaten the witch to lift the curse, or else. This leads to Path #3.

PATH #1: STUBBORN AND PIGHEADED

You leave the witch’s hut, confident in your own abilities to save Daphne from her tree incarceration. Back at Dantan Glade, Jacob is puffing on a pipe, and asks how your meeting with the witch went. You can optionally mention it wasn’t as bad as Jacob had described, before mentioning you know how to lift the curse. You want to use Daphne’s kerchief, after lighting fires to the four winds.

A few hours later, Jacob has made four small bonfires, and you must visit each one, igniting it with a click of your fingers, or a blast of your Igni. You order the prisoner within the tree to recall today who she really is, before tossing the kerchief on one of the blazing fires. With a shrieking moan, the spirit is ejected from the tree. But it isn’t happy! Face this Banshee in combat, using all the guile and cunning you learned from reading the Bestiary entry for this creature.

After you finally dismiss this screaming wraith, you explain to Jacob that you went about lifting the curse the wrong way; tearing Daphne from her prison rather than freeing her from it. But as Jacob says, “That’s what I get for hiring a bungler.” Now take your coin and go, as the quest concludes.

PATH #2: HUMBLE AND PROSTRATE

Choose to plead with the witch to lift the curse, and she asks you why she should help. You can reply with the following:

You’ll humble yourself. This continues this path.

You’ll make her do it; leading to Path #3, or you can lift the curse yourself, leading to Path #1.

Assuming you humble yourself, you kneel before the witch, who is surprised at your bending of the neck. She explains that Daphne cannot have her lost years restored, but she can be made to depart in peace. But that information comes with a price: a lock of your hair. She says the hair is needed for a spell to conceal herself from you for all time, but you aren’t so sure. You can:

Agree to this deal. This continues this path.

Say “no chance” and threaten her (Path #3) or that you’ll manage on your own (Path #1).

Assuming you slice off a lock of your hair, give it to the witch, and listen to her advice, you are to convince Daphne that her beloved yearned to return but perished in the attempt. Take the silk kerchief, and a fragment of Gareth’s remains; his bones lie bleaching in a cave beneath this hut. Fire must consume both the kerchief and bones, and your intentions must be pure.

Exit the hut, and descend to the bottom of the crag, looking on either side of it for one of the two cave entrances to enter. Once inside either one, face three Kikimore Workers, and burn a clutch of eggs if you wish, before searching this small cavern. Look on the narrow ledges by the southern cave wall of a glittering suit of armor, with the skeletal remains of Sir Gareth inside, and gather his bones.

The ghost of Daphne emerges peacefully from the tree and tells her sad version of the story. She asks if her betrothed remained faithful. Answer as you wish. She leaves the world and passes on. Now that you have successfully freed Daphne, you receive payment from Jacob, who is satisfied at the result, and the quest concludes.

PATH #3: THREATS AND BLUSTER

Threaten the witch in return for her help, and she is understandably furious. She doesn’t react well to bluster, especially under her own roof! As she summons a ball of fire, you leap out of the window, and must face the witch in battle! She has offensive fire and lightning magic that can wound you if you aren’t protected by Quen, she lifts up small boulders to float in the air before flinging them at you, but she has little to stop your melee blows. You must defeat one of her big cats as well as the witch herself.

After bettering the witch in combat, she agrees to try and lift the curse. Whether you trust her or not is irrelevant, so answer as you wish. She vanishes in a cloud of birds and feathers, leaving you to return to the Dantan Glade and the bleeding willow tree.

Retrace your steps to the tree. When you arrive, it seems Jacob has vanished, and he’d never leave the tree of his own free will. Begin to search for him using your Witcher Senses. You find the following:

• Fresh blood and clear deep prints near the tree.

Follow the tracks along the wooded side of the camp to an area behind a pile of logs where you can hear low growling. Oh dear, Jacob’s pet is savaging his master’s corpse. Morholt turns and leaps at you! The wolf must be quickly put down using combat.

Afterward, approach the remains of Jacob. It seems the witch freed Daphne’s spirit from the tree, but didn’t mention the specter would be insane and full of rage. Daphne possessed the first living creature it ran into—Jacob’s dog—which then savaged Jacob. You say a soft farewell to the chivalrous woodsman. Life is rarely like a fairytale…and this quest concludes.