Of Dairy and Darkness Walkthrough
Part #1
Purchase the Lizard Figurine from the merchant in the building behind the notice board closest to the St. Gregory Bridge travel signpost in Novigrad.
After leaving the merchant’s shop, head over to the objective marker located on the far eastern side of the map. This is Aeramas’s Manor. We’ll need to use our Witcher Senses to explore the area.
- The obvious point of interest here is the pentagram drawn on the ground on the lower level of the building. We can however go up the nearby stairs to find a chest containing Diagram: Enhanced Feline Armor and a Document – The Mage Aeramas’ last journal entry.
Return to the pentagram and inspect it when you are ready. Interact with it whilst you have the Lizard Figurine in your inventory and it will open a portal.
Entering the portal will have you appear in a large underground ruin. Below you you’ll find a large room filled with statues… and cheese. The small pedestals with cheese on them will generate a small gas cloud around them that will take Geralt’s breath away causing him to choke and lose health if you stay to close for too long.
Our goal in the ‘Trial of Cheeses’ is to run through the cheese/statue gauntlet below in order to reach the broken stairway in the far back right corner of the area. Climb up onto the platform here and follow the passage until you reach another inactive portal.
Interact with the portal and step through. Mosey down the ramp and into the water at its base – swim to a small platform across from the base of the ramp to find a chest.
Part #2
Head to the yellow investigation zone and dive underwater to find a tunnel here we can swim through. At the far end you’ll want to surface and climb out onto the platform behind the large stone column.
Climb the ledge to the right and follow the path through the cave until you can see what looks to be a mage laboratory across a gap on the far side of the chamber. Find the point at which it is closest and run and jump across the gap to reach it.
In the laboratory here, you’ll need to kill a Foglet.
- Once the area is clear, loot the desk for a Bull Figurine and using Witcher Sense you can also locate an orange-coloured hidden wall nearby. You can use the Eye of Nehaleni to remove the illusion to find a nice cache of lootables inside (for me it included: Manuscript Page – Enhanced Elementa Oil and Manuscript Page: Enhanced Full Moon).
In the main area, look for the arch near the desk and interact with the base of it with the Bull Figurine in your inventory to open another portal.
After heading through the latest portal, you’ll find a large red magic shield in the centre of the room ahead. Being the inquisitive explorers that we are, we are going to want to disable it.
On either side of the room, you’ll find a small pedestal with an object of interest (the left hand one is hidden behind an illusion (use the Eye of Nehaleni to remove it). Use IGNI on both of these small crystals to remove the shield.
With the shield out of the way we can move up and loot the mage’s treasure. The chest contains a Snake Figurine and 50 Crowns and the statue can be looted for a sword – The Emmentaler. Looting this sword will complete the quest.
For a fast exit, head around behind the statue to find a final inactive portal. Interact with this with the Snake Figurine in your inventory to activate the portal. This will port you all the way back to the remnants of the manor.
…And side-quest complete!