Contract Doors Slamming Shut Walkthrough
This quest can be acquired via a notice posted on the Hierarch Square Notice board.
After nabbing the notice from the board in Hierarch Square, you can talk to Kurt Dysart on the second floor of the interior of the Kingfisher Inn. He’ll fill you in with a little more detail on the contract.
Once you are through with him, make your way to the objective marker on the map to the east of Novigrad. It is located at the ‘Moldavie Residence’ fast travel marker (if you have that unlocked) or about halfway between the ‘Isolated Hut’ and ‘Dancing Windmill’ fast travel markers.
When you arrive at the residence, use the key that you’ve been given to enter via the front door. Once inside, a large yellow investigation area will appear on the map. We’ll need to examine the residence.
Note: As you are moving through the house, be sure to loot the chests as one of them contains Torn-out Page: Ancient Leshen Decoction.
When you are ready to commence, activate Witcher Sense and you can inspect the following:
- Bowl of fruit on a table in the first room.
- Scattered salt on the floor by the stairs in the second room.
Continue down the stairs in the second room and at the bottom, there is a weak wall directly ahead that we can knock down with a blast of AARD. You can also loot the store room to the left for a few alchemy reagents and vendor trash. Head through the hole in the wall when you are ready to proceed.
You’ll find yourself in a set of Elven ruins. Cross the makeshift wooden bridge and approach the door ahead. In front of the door, you can whack on Witcher Sense once more and do some investigation. Geralt can inspect the following:
- The plant root on the table to the left of the door.
- The book (Amaverick of Sorano’s Journal) sitting on the desk to the right of the door.
After looting the book, head into your inventory and read Amaverick of Sorano’s Journal. This will update your objectives.
Return to the makeshift wooden bridge and jump into the water below. Swim down the passage to the east and climb out onto the platform at the end. Use Witcher Sense to locate the lever on the wall here and pull it – this will unlock the door. Swim back to the platform with the door on it and climb back up.
Prepare yourself for a fight before continuing through the now open door.
The room beyond the door is dominated by a large, shielded Earth Elemental and we’re going to have to defeat him to complete the quest. First though, we’ll need to deactivate the magical barrier surrounding it. To do so, head around behind the Earth Elemental to find a small, egg-shaped stone on an altar. Hit this with a blast of AARD to disable the barrier and kick off the boss fight.
Boss: Therazane (Earth Elemental)
Similar to the Golem we fought earlier, the Earth Elemental is big and slow with the capacity to perform some extremely damaging close range melee attacks and will regularly punch/stomp the ground causing a shockwave if you stay too close or send a wave of erupting earth in your direction.
To beat him, 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. Using QUEN to tank the boss is a necessity in this fight due to the regular shockwaves and the small combat area leaving almost no room to avoid said shockwaves. Even with QUEN active, you should still try to avoid his hits as he does do a LOT of damage. If you are feeling adventurous, you can dish out a little damage with IGNI, whilst using AXII will stun him temporarily.
This boss, more than most has the ability to kill you very quickly, as such – don’t be greedy! Get your 1-2 attacks in when you see an opening and immediately back off so that you can maneuver around his next attempted attack.
Once the Earth Elemental is dead, loot the body for the Earth Elemental Trophy, Earth Elemental Mutagen and any other goodies it was carrying.
With the Earth Elemental now pushing up daisies, we can mosey on back to the Kingfisher Inn in Novigrad and speak with Kurt Dysart once again to end the side-quest.
Note: At this point, you’ll earn 300XP and 200 Crowns.
Note: For completing this contract, you’ll earn the ‘Ashes to Ashes’ achievement/trophy.