Part 61 - The Witcher 3 - 2nd playthrough - Death March

I'm starting the main quest chain called Final Preparations by helping Ciri. Her quest is called Payback, and it involves visiting old friends and enemies. She thought Whoreson Junior was alive, I couldn't convince her otherwise, and she insisted we visit him.

But this was no Whoreson, it was Dudu the doppler. He had decided to take the form of Whoreson and run a legal business in his name.

Apparently, nobody suspects a thing, because none of his henchmen are aware Geralt killed him. Fair enough. But Dudu earlier impersonated Caleb Menge who we also killed. I wonder how people reacted when he suddenly disappeared...

Next, Ciri wanted to visit a girl, Bea, who had helped her during his unfortunate adventures in Novigrad earlier.

Ciri gave her a small present to remember her by, and that was it. Details of the two girls' relationship is not known...

Finally, Ciri wanted me to accompany her to visit a traveling elven circus whose members had given her shelter before. Ciri repaid her debt to them, and they kindly invited us to hang out with them that evening.

Ciri and Geralt did some bonding by the campfire. I feel a little guilty for planning the empress fate for Ciri this time, as she would so clearly prefer to be free from worries and live as a traveler all her life... Ciri, you did become a witcher in my first playthrough, is that any consolation? :)

Ciri's circus friends then explained to us the predicament they were in. To avoid ending up on a stake, they needed to flee the Novigrad area soon. However, to do this, they needed more horses. Ciri and Geralt agreed to help.

Geralt, completely disguised so nobody would suspect it was him who stole the horses. :DD

With Ciri's quest complete, I went to see Triss. She is also renting a room at Dandelion's tavern.

She was upset she hadn't been invited to the party where we killed Imlerith and the Crones. Understandable. It was a fun party. :)

She told me gathering the sorceresses hadn't been very successful so far, but one of them, Philippa Eilhart, must have been somewhere in the city, still in owl form.

This fountain is one of my favorite spots in Novigrad due to the beautiful architecture. :)

Triss threw one of Philippa's owl feathers into the water, cast a spell, and Dijkstra's bathhouse appeared on the surface. Aha! It's that bastard!

The detailed interiors in this game are no less gorgeous than the landscapes.

I would say Philippa wasn't happy to see me, but she can't see... OK, bad joke. Anyway, she summoned a fire elemental to deal with me, because she didn't believe me when I said I was there to help her. The monster seemed difficult to kill at first, but Northern Wind bombs did the trick. It was down in no time once I froze it.

I convinced Philippa it was best for her to come with me and Triss would explain everything to her outside.

Dijkstra, however, didn't want to let her go, because he wanted her dead. They have a long, complicated relationship I know nothing about, not having read the Witcher books or played the previous games. All I know is that Philippa once sent assassins to kill him out of political reasons, and he is pissed about that.

I don't like Dijkstra, and I don't want him to be king of the North, so I broke his leg to prevent him from standing in our way. And then I did some reading and found out breaking his leg was exactly what would prevent me from assassinating Radovid and making sure Nilfgaard won the war! I couldn't let this happen, so I reloaded an earlier save file and instead of fighting Dijkstra, I calmly convinced him that Philippa, who hates Radovid as much as he does, was more useful to us alive. As my current playthrough is likely the last, I don't want any bad outcomes.

I reached level 30 after this scene.

A low level quest with Triss called The Soldier Statuette appeared, so I quickly completed it. We had to release a Nilfgaardian soldier "compressed" into a small statue by the same sorceress who had also punished a nobleman the same way.

Triss is now wearing her favorite earrings I had found in our destroyed bed in Kaer Morhen. She was happy to get them back, and she seems okay with me and Yennefer being together.