Contract: The Creature from the Oxenfurt Forest Walkthrough
This quest can be acquired via a notice posted on the Oxenfurt Notice board.
After nabbing the notice from the board in Oxenfurt, make your way to the small fortified mercenary camp to the east of the city, it can be located just to the southeast of the ‘Herbalist’s Hut’ fast travel marker. When you arrive, speak to Hans of Cidaris, and he’ll outline the contract in more detail.
Once you are through with him, make your way to the objective marker on the map to the south of the mercenary camp. It is located just west of the ‘Aeramis’ Abandoned Manor’ fast travel marker (if you have that unlocked).
When you arrive at the site of the attack, examine the investigation area. Activate Geralt’s Witcher Senses and explore the area. You can inspect the following points of interest:
- The corpse on the ground in the centre of the clearing.
- Pools of blood around the clearing.
- A severed arm on a rock slightly north of the corpse.
- Trail of blood by the severed arm.
Once you have examined the trail of blood, our objectives will update. With Geralt’s Witcher Sense active, follow the trail until it comes to a stop. As you go, you’ll want to watch out for Wolves as the woods around this area are often crawling with them. When you reach the end of the trail, examine the final pool of blood to again update Geralt’s objectives.
At this point, we’ll need to locate and follow a group of Ravens. Head into the yellow search area and activate your Witcher Senses whilst looking upwards. When the Ravens make noise, they’ll appear as red ripples in the sky (they’ll be to the east). Make your way over to their location. On the ground beneath the Ravens, you’ll come across a Feather that we can inspect.
Note: At this point, you’ll earn 25XP.
After inspecting the feather, keep moving to the east and climb up the series of rocky ledges here until you reach a nest. Loot the second mercenary’s corpse here for a letter.
We’ll now need to wait after dark for the monster to return home. Prepare yourself for a tough fight and then meditate until night time to kick off a boss fight.
Boss: Opinicus (Archgriffin)
The Opinicus fight is similar to the Basilisk and Griffin fights we’ve encountered earlier in the game although it is much tougher due to its high level and its ability to stack debuffs on Geralt. Fortunately, it acts in much the same way as the aforementioned monsters and as such the tactics remain essentially the same.
Whilst it does have wings, for the most part it will attack from the ground and has quite a large area of attack due to its large wings being able to perform sweeping moves. It will often jump in the air and leap attack at your position as well as utilising a nasty lunge attack. When it is in the air, it will occasionally attempt a swooping attack that can be easily rolled under/away from but will hit like a tonne of bricks if not avoided. Whilst on the ground it can also rear back and perform a screeching attack which will stun Geralt temporarily, so if you see it coming, try to roll away as quickly as possible.
Similar to the Basilisk it is able to spit green projectiles at you which will poison Geralt if it makes contact and additionally, any melee attack that it hits Geralt with has the chance to cause a damage over time bleeding effect.
The easiest way to take it down quickly is to use a combination of AXII to stun it, IGNI and AARD to dish out damage or YRDEN to slow its movements to get a few attacks in. Whilst in the air, hit it with crossbow bolts or AARD to bring it crashing to the ground – run up and smash it a few times and then use your dodges and rolls to avoid its ground-based attacks whilst dishing out your own attacks when you see an opening. Repeat this process until it hits the dust.
Once the Griffin is dead loot its body for the Griffin Trophy and Archgriffin Mutagen along with any other items of interest it is carrying around.
With your new Griffin Trophy in your possession, return to the Hans at the mercenary camp to hand in the side-quest.
Note: At this point, you’ll earn 300XP and 221 Crowns.