Without a trace (spoilers) DO NOT RUSH THIS QUEST

[Brechnor]

SPOILERS. I found a secret area.
Even youtube walkthroughs have missed this hidden secret :P

Don't rush the quest without a trace, look at the town, it's empty no people around.
Look behined the house of the "innocent" people, look at the crappy meat she is chopping, go around the back of a house to a secret area, AARD the crates and when you go down there you will be reminded of a scene from films like the book of eli and the cannabalistic couple that 'helps' him, or even the crones of crookback bog in the main story line in this game... it's very horrific.

They spewed excuses about how they only take the dead but there is a cage in there, why would you have a cage to keep dead people in? there is further proof in a house that they kill living people too with the blood stained hand on the wall. It's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ made up lie they are murderers. Also, if you don't take pity you can get in the house with a key, there is another mysterious room in there that looks caged up and I haven't found a way into it yet.

My point is finally this, has any one found a way to get through the second locked door inside that particular house?

[Jacira]

Glad to know a thread so old can still receive so much attention. Great side quest. It's not hard to tell there's something up with the couple right away.

I killed them. All evidence around the area points to them being straight up murderers. As for the second locked room it's just grass and some floorboards. Maybe they were in the process of making another entrance into their little larder?

Witchers often get a bad rap, so my Geralt likes to go above and beyond to try and change that reputation.

[Chaos Marine]

You know, technically since it was humans eating a halfling it wouldn't be cannabalism because they're different species.

[@ N33D F0R $PR33 @extreemlolo]

I killed them, taking everything in account, they looked guilty. When the fight starts, the old lady yells: I'll chop you up, make a nice stew of you. Biggest confirmation i could get.

[Janthis]

I think what happened, based on all the evidence, is that the halfling really was attacked by wolves, got wounded and stumbled into the village looking for help. Instead, the old couple found him and finished the job, turning him into next day's lunch. I didn't really buy their stories about how they only eat the bodies they find, because then why were there bloody handprints on the wall inside the house next door, and cages in their basement?

There's a similar quest in Fallout 3 where you encounter a small village of cannibals, but there you can either choose to kill them, let them go or join them by telling them you also eat people. :)

[miss_duck]

this quest is super weird.

I got the bug in which they are immortal so I saved myself the trouble and spared them.

aaand there are actual consequences of this choice - after some time (meditate a day to be sure) head back to the abandoned village and you'll find ALGHULS partying over the dead couple. After the fight Geralt says something like "the herbalist kept his words". (did he hire someone to kill them - alghuls managed to find the bodies?)

You can find the key and open a door, not the second one though, but take notice that APPRENTICE'S BODY IS GONE. I thought the herbalist buried him around his house close to Oxenfurt but I can't find any proof.

[Duncan]

miss_juggler님이 먼저 게시:

this quest is super weird.

I got the bug in which they are immortal so I saved myself the trouble and spared them.

aaand there are actual consequences of this choice - after some time (meditate a day to be sure) head back to the abandoned village and you'll find ALGHULS partying over the dead couple. After the fight Geralt says something like "the herbalist kept his words". (did he hire someone to kill them - alghuls managed to find the bodies?)

You can find the key and open a door, not the second one though, but take notice that APPRENTICE'S BODY IS GONE. I thought the herbalist buried him around his house close to Oxenfurt but I can't find any proof.

As for bug - you can run away and meditate a bit, then come back and they will be mortal. The bug is well known but it was never fixed.

Alghouls just came to the village because they sniffed the cannibals butchery. They always come to places where corpses could be found.

[Refurbished Hamster]

I killed them because I figured, at worst, I was performing a mercy killing. They said themselves that they had no other way of getting food, so they were either going to break that promise, or starve to death.

[raddcell]

[First post, pls have mercy!] God I love this game. Fantastic quest. All have made excellent points, and Brechnor said what I felt had not been said, to some extent. So just to summarize:

In defense they claim they are old and frail, they can't plow and sow. Here is why that is false:
- When you arrive the wife tells the husband something like "Be sharp, we have a visitor"
- They have plenty of hunted animal carcasses,
- They have the manual on Smithing and do it yourself
- The halfling was carried (no drag marks to detect with senses)
- They have a bloody cage for keeping live humanoids (an animal can simply be tied off out in the open)
- There are enough chopped wood, neatly stacked, next to the house to last them for many weeks. Chopping wood is hard work
All of these prove that they are strong and able, and clearly strong enough to sow and plow. They just don't WANT to, their diet consist of other food sources...

The hut with blood in it:
- Hand prints on the walls and floor prove there was a struggle
- It was boarded up, you were not MEANT to see the hut
- The old man said "You shouldn't be in there in the first place" Why not? it's clearly abandoned
- As stated above, there are also no foot prints leaving the hut - he was killed, then carried

The town is old and dilapidated. Most of the other huts are too weathered to have been inhabited in quite some time. Meaning they have had to be self sufficient for many years, even decades. Yet their cabin is in great shape and had been well maintained. In addition, in this world there are plenty of small villages with young people making their living. So they all just abandoned their homes and "left for the city" in this one, by coincidence?

The final damning evidence is the woman wanting to eat your oysters, and make you in a stew. They also don't cower, beg for mercy and run away, like normal NPC's do when frightened. They reached level 35, that takes butchering a lot of humans ;)

Someone said "there is a lot of evidence for and against". The ONLY "evidence" in their favour is them claiming to be too frail and old. It FEELS like they are telling the truth because they are "old and frail". And lonely, all the youngens abandoned them for the bright city lights... They play on our preconceived ideas which we mostly get from our grandparents. This Shows a remarkable level of manipulation and lying, possibly for decades. Hallmark attributes of veteran sociopaths! you sir, would have been served as stew...

[Zero]

Is everyone of you serious? You can instantly end the quest. Of course you can be stupid and not look around the village, but like people already said, go to the back. Use aard. Then you can go into the cellar. Find the halfling, talk to the people again and when you kill them they drop a key. I dont get all this talk "I didnt get into the house! I cant progress!" ♥♥♥♥.

[Hwangchung]

Sans님이 먼저 게시:

Is everyone of you serious? You can instantly end the quest. Of course you can be stupid and not look around the village, but like people already said, go to the back. Use aard. Then you can go into the cellar. Find the halfling, talk to the people again and when you kill them they drop a key. I dont get all this talk "I didnt get into the house! I cant progress!" ♥♥♥♥.

Of course you can also be stupid and not read what people are actually saying. Most people are talking about the locked room inside the house and wondering if you can get in(you can't and it's empty).

[Ez Duzit]

v0님이 먼저 게시:

PekaSovereign님이 먼저 게시:

Is this quest from HoS?

Yeah I want to know answer to this one too because haven't bought that DLC yet.

lmgtfy http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Witcher+3+Without+a+trace

[Wildcard]

The locked room inside the couples house has nothing in it, you can jump ontop of the counter on the right as soon as you walk in the front door and look over the wall. Its just an empty room But if you look at the door it stands to reason its either a safe room which is kind of unlikely though the sliding window and bar on the door suggest this more likely though its intended as a cell to hold captives which is also very evident by looking at the front of the house the same window is barred over. Elementary my dear Watson simple deduction.

[Der Orso]

A lot of what was posted here is flat out wrong.

Light spoiler: There is really not that much too investigate in Erde. Take your time and pay attention to what you are looking at.

Major Spoilers: If wolves had attacked the halfling, why would they not have killed him and either devoured him right there, or carried him off? Geralt, with all his training and experience, armor and weapons, has to fight and be careful not to be killed by wolves. How would a halfling survive more than half a minute of being attacked by a pack of wolves? He wouldn't. This suggests that one of the old couple attacked and wounded him, and he ran to the village, hoping to find refuge, but actually only to fall into a trap, because the other of the couple was waiting for him there.

The halflings tracks lead to the entrance of the village, and there they simply ended. Somebody carried the halfling from that point on, either picked him up and put him on a cart or in a wheelbarrow, or simply carried him. He was unlikely dead at the time. If he were, they would have probably just have dragged him. They carried him until he was out of sight so that he wouldn't struggle and fight back.

There are NOT lots of bloody hand prints all over the walls in the house next to the old couple's house. There is exactly one hand print, unless my color-blindness is preventing me from seeing them. There is only one that glows when using Geralt's Witcher Sense. The rest is blood on the floor, table, and the oven. Also, the blood is very old, so the halfling was not killed there, nor anybody else for a long time. So the bloody room is not as incriminating as has been stated.

Looking in the cellar, there is lots of meat other than the dead halfling. There are two rabbits hanging above the table, along with what appear to me to be a leg of lamb and a hog's hind leg. There is a small deer on the table itself, and a lamb carcass between the two cages. Doesn't seem to me, that they were in any desperation for food and had to eat the dead halfling.

The greatest incrimination is, there is a skeleton in the left cage! If you know to look, or simply take your time, you can't miss it.

My conclusion: All things indicate that the old couple are cannibals out of choice, and that they actually went out with a plan to kill the halfling, which they did.

[MaximumEffort]

Der Orso님이 먼저 게시:

A lot of what was posted here is flat out wrong.

My conclusion:

A very internet like version of saying - your opinion is not valid, mine is.

Kudos!

[Radiobacille]

I know I'm late to the party but I have to add - I believe I encountered bandits on the way to the "village" (not nearby, they were somewhere in one of the gear diagram quest locations, vague, I know) and there was a note on one of them, the leader writing about how he sends the men he finds to be the least valuable out to the woods the old couple lives in. He tells them they're on a scouting mission, when in reality he knew they'd never return. The note doesn't mention the couple, but it makes it clear he considers the woods to be a place to send people to death.

That pretty much primed me for there to be something "special" in those woods, and that combined with the human captivity evidence made it rather clear these weren't two feeble people forced into cannibalism, but rather predators of opportunity, and ambush killers.