Part 55 - The Witcher 3 - 2nd playthrough - Death March

My Geralt is now level 25, so I was looking for maximum level 28 quests for him to do. He took on a contract simply called Dragon in the village of Fyresdal on Ard Skellig. This isn't Skyrim, and dragons are much rarer in this universe than to just start murdering random village boys, but the local elder didn't believe me, insisting it was really a dragon who had moved in near their settlement.

Such lovely details on this little hut!

I inspected the bodies of the alleged dragon's latest two victims and found no fire damage on them...

This scene would make a nice painting. :)

There was no dragon here, just as Geralt had suspected, but a powerful forktail did set up camp nearby. To lure it to me, I used this poor sheep as bait.

I killed the forktail in an intense battle, then went back to the village elder to collect my reward. When I told him the monster had not been a dragon just a smaller version called a forktail, he gave me only half the agreed sum! I guess next time I shouldn't be a smartass and just let the guy believe whatever he wants...

I accidentally chose the gwent option with a smith or merchant, I didn't intend to play, but in the end it was a fun victory. :)

My next undertaking was collecting the diagrams for the enhanced ursine gear. Just when I thought trolls couldn't get any more annoying, I ran into three farting trolls in a cave! This is near Kaer Muire, and the trolls were guarding the diagram for the enhanced ursine boots and some other loot. I killed them with glee.

The next diagram to collect was for the silver sword, and I had to travel from the southwestern part of Ard Skellig to the northeastern part to get it. It was a long journey, but I didn't use fast travel to explore as much as possible.

This little boy was crying for help by the side of the road, so I jumped off Roach to see what was going on, even though I vaguely remembered from my first playthrough that this was a trap. Sure enough, it was, he lured me into a bandit camp. He must be friends with this other boy who works for bandits in Novigrad, the little bugger!

I don't usually travel by night and prefer to meditate until the morning when it starts to get dark, but sometimes it's worth staying up late to see the beauty of the night sky. :)

The next day, I met an angry cyclops. It wasn't a lucky day... for the cyclops. Once it was dead, I investigated the area and found a letter addressed to the Kaer Trolde swordsmith on the body of a woman. This started the quest called Hard Times, but I didn't want to get sidetracked, so I continued my search for the bear gear diagrams.

Geralt enjoying winter sports. :)

This adventure turned out to be much longer than I expected, and Geralt had nothing but baked potatoes left to eat. The diagram to the silver sword was near the ruins of Kaer Gelen, so I explored it first and had some tough fights with level 29 wraiths and a katakan. Then I finally found the ruins where the silver sword diagram was hidden and was killed multiple times by a horde of alghouls before I could pick it up.

Two more diagrams left to collect, and both are on tiny islands only accessible by boat. I stopped by in Rogne, because I hadn't visited it this playthrough, then fast traveled to Marlin Coast on Undvik.

Geralt, watch out, foglet at 4 o'clock!

These were some super foglets that looked like the Alien's little brothers...

I was down to 11 baked potatoes by the time I got the diagram for the trousers.

The last diagram, for the steel sword, was on another small island inhabited by approximately 100 pirates and their rabid dogs! Okay, I'm exaggerating, but there were many, many of them, and they killed me several times before I finally found the right tactic. What finally worked for me was staying as far from them as possible, letting only one or two near me, and using axii or igni to slow them down so I could get in a few hits before retreating again. This took a long time! It didn't help that I ran out of baked potatoes and had nothing to eat but what I found on the bodies of the pirates, a single fried fish here, a ham sandwich there...

But eventually, I had all the enhanced diagrams I needed. I traveled to Kaer Trolde and gave the smith the letter, thus completing the Hard Times quest. The smith is so heartbroken over the death of his sister, that now he won't talk to me, only saying "Leave me to my grief." What's more, the armorer who works next to him is bugged, all his goods have disappeared, so I couldn't buy the missing ingredients from him. He crafted my boots, armor and gauntlets, then I had to travel to Novigrad to complete my set.

My friend Éibhear forged my two swords, then I visited the armorer on Hierarch Square who crafted my trousers. Looking great! :)

Now I need to buy food before doing anything else.