Blindingly Obvious Walkthrough
Head upstairs inside the Rosemary and Thyme to find Triss in one of the rooms. Enter and you’ll immediately be thrown into a timed decision, the options include:
- “Calm down, it went well”
- “Sorry, shouldn’t have”
- “We had to do it”
As far as I can tell the responses do nothing other than slightly alter in-game dialogue. After a bit of a powwow you’ll learn what they have been up to in your absence and what we’re going to have to do shortly.
Note: During the conversation you’ll learn what has happened to Keira. If she is alive and did not join you in Kaer Mohen, you’ll receive the quest ‘A Final Kindness’.
At the end of the conversation, you’re given the opportunity to jump into the quest right away or to meet Triss by the fountain at the Passiflora Brothel.
After a brief scene at the fountain, follow Triss and she’ll lead you to Dijkstra’s Bath house. When you arrive you’ll see things have gotten a little out of hand. Triss will stay here, so it’s up to us to head in and sort things out.
Enter the main section of the bath house and fight off the three mind-controlled bodyguards that come to attack you. Once they are done, proceed into the room at the back of the bath house and just like in the ‘Count Reuven’s Treasure’ quest earlier, climb down the ladder to the cellars.
Work your way through the area and fight off another pair of possessed bodyguards. One has a shield, so be sure to deal with him last if they both come at you at once. Continue through the cellars until you run into Dijkstra’s pet Troll.
Speak to the Troll and during this conversation, you’ll have a pair of options, which will slightly alter how the quest will play out. They include:
- “I need her.” – this will trigger a fight and you’ll need to fight the Troll.
- “I want to help her.” – The Troll will let you past.
Either way you choose to play through the encounter, afterwards you’ll need to continue through the sewer area until you reach the gate indicated by the objective marker. Proceed into the next room for a scene… And a fight.
Boss: Fire Elemental
The Fire Elemental can activate a fiery aura that will cause fire damage to Geralt if he stays too close for too long. In addition, the Elemental can dish out some nasty close range melee attacks and will regularly punch the ground causing an area of effect shockwave if you stay too close. He also has ranged capabilities with and will also shoot out a wave of fire in a line directly in front of him as well as tossing fireballs that can explode on impact causing a little splash damage if you are too close to them. Whilst he sounds tough, he is actually not all that tricky to take down. Using AARD will temporarily remove his fiery aura; disabling his fire-based AOE smash and allowing you to pretty much treat him as a regular large enemy. YRDEN is also helpful in that it will slow him down to make him more manageable. Once he is in the weakened state, we'll need to wait for an opening in its attacks. Fortunately most of its attacks are quite obviously telegraphed and there is a small window after any attack he does. Note that during this fight, you'll also need to keep an eye out for the purple energy balls that are tossed at you from the balcony above, they will do a good bit of damage when they hit, so stay clear!
Once you have dealt with the Fire Elemental, you’ll also need to deal with the angry mage. Climb up the stairs nearby and slowly, SLOWLY walk around the edge of the room and sneak up on here. Try not to touch the chains hanging from the room on either side or run/jump as you’ll draw her attention.
When you reach the platform with the mage a scene will play and you’ll return to the bath house where you’ll have a word with Dijkstra. If you completed the ‘A Deadly Plot’ side-quest earlier and want to pick up the subsequent side-quest ‘Reason of State’ you’ll want to select the top, more peaceful options each time.
No matter your choice of words, following the conversation the quest will be completed.
Note: For completing the quest you’ll earn 500XP.
Note: If you completed the ‘A Deadly Plot’ side-quest earlier, visited the emperor with Ciri during ‘Blood on the Battlefield’ and treated Djikstra nicely during this quest, you can unlock the ‘Reason of State’ side-quest.
At this point you can move on to ‘Payback’ or ‘The Great Escape’ and if you have finished both, move forward with ‘Through Time and Space’.
If you are following the guide, Ciri is closest to where we ended the previous quest, so head over and speak with her to commence the story quest ‘Payback’.