The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine - Beyond Hill and Dale

What in the heck have we got ourselves into?

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The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine - Beyond Hill and Dale

This is really important: throughout this quest there are several actions and decision points that seem to shape what ending you get from this branch. We’ll highlight the ones we noticed while attempting to avoid spoilers. In general, if you want to have a choice of endings, always explore all dialogue with Syanna.

The mission prompt says to “follow the yellow brick road”, but it is very hard to get to your destination by gluing your eyes to it, as it seemingly just loops around. The only branch that goes anywhere interesting is interrupted by a slab of rock, making it very easy to miss. If you do find it, it goes over a broken bridge and you’ll have to fight an archespore, but can collect a Poison Apple from a dwarf, which is cute.

Otherwise, just climb off the path onto high ground and push to the north and east until you hear voices and see the search zone on your mini-map. Apply relict Oil, then approach to trigger a cutscene and boss battle.

Boss: Wicked Witch

The witch has no specific vulnerabilities besides Relict Oil, unfortunately.

The witch flies around the arena in a bubble, usually out of reach. She summons minions to battle you – an archespore in round one, a panther in round two, an archespore and a panther in round three and beyond.

After you bring the minion down, track the witch and cue up a sign – Aard and Igni work well. When the witch swoops you, hit her with the sign to bring her down hard so you can hammer away at her health. If you miss, she’ll keep swooping, spraying soup everywhere.

After a few hits she’ll always unleash an area of effect attack with her soup that will stun you. Luckily she takes the opening gets back on her broom, so it just means another round of the same thing.

After a few rounds and a good whack of her health bar, the witch’s broom will attack after you bring her down. You need to bring it down quickly as its health will recharge if you let the witch get off the ground again. The broom must die to end the fight; if you attack the witch now she’ll stun you straight away.

Finding the three magic beans

When the fight is over, chat with Syanna and loot nearby containers for junk if you like.

Head down the indicated path to battle some pixies; not very tough, but swarming. A little further and you find a mount, and just beyond that you’ll have to battle a bunch of wolves to save Joss.

After the chat you'll have multiple objectives. "Visit Grandmama’s house" is selected by default and is only a short trot away. Some pixies will attack but you can just gallop past if you’re not feeling it.

At grandmama’s house, have a chat with the Big Bad Wolf. Apply Beast Oil, then jump into the well and use Witcher Senses to find Red Riding Hood’s cloak under the water. Swim out the tunnel and you’ll eventually fight the wolf. It’s a standard werewolf battle, so just dodge and counter after it swipes at you. It doesn’t have any tricks worth mentioning, and Syanna helps.

Important!

After the battle you can chat with Syanna for details of her past if you like. Absolutely do this so that you'll have the option to choose a specific ending to this branch. Don't tell her she's not interesting!

Loot the wolf’s body as well as the house before heading to the next objective. Take the path out the opposite side of Grandma’s yard. For best results ignore Roach and walk, because Syana’s conversation is pretty good as you encounter various fairy tale characters.

Apply Beast Oil, then use Aard to knock down the brick house and battle the three pigs. They attack similarly to wolves but have a nasty kick attack, so don’t assume you’re safe if you’re behind them. When they’re dead, grab the bean from a platter in a corner of the ruins.

Continue along the path. If you decide to explore the tiny village on your left be very careful as it’s all too easy to have a terrible accident. Maybe save first? In any case, there are pixies along the path here.

Important!

In the next town along the path you’ll meet The Little Match – uh, Flint Girl. She has a ribbon Syanna wants, and you can obtain it in various ways, including Gwent. Returning this ribbon to Syanna seems to unlock certain endings. We'll have an update on this as soon as possible.

In the town you’ll also see a notice board where you can obtain the secondary quest Duck, Duck, Goosed (recommended level 47). You need to do this before you leave this area, obviously.

There’s a path leading out of the town with the notice board that’ll get you to Longlocks (Rapunzel). Sprint and jump to get across the gap in the stairs. After climbing the ladder, push through the crack in the wall, then vault onto the internal stairs. The camera in here is bollocks and there’s another gap in the stairs you need to hop, so be careful.

At the top, go through the door and then turn right to find another door leading to another set of stairs and a final door. Apply Spectre Oil and rest up before you enter; unfortunately Longlocks hasn’t coped well with her isolation.

Boss: Longlocks

• Oil: Spectre
• Sign: Yrden

Longlocks is a type of wraith, so cast a couple of Yrden immediately or your attacks will do almost no damage.

Although the spirit’s blows hit hard, it’s best to stay close so that you can get behind her if she begins to cast her screech attack; it hits hard and stuns, and is her most deadly move.

After you chop Longlocks down a bit she’ll summon a bunch of undead warriors and begin to heal herself. The faster you take the mobs down, the less she’ll regenerate. Luckily, one blast of Igni takes them down and you can hit most of the pack in one shot.

After the battle, loot the bed for the bean; there’s some other stuff around the room, too. When you’re ready to leave, vault the broken stairs and walk out onto the wooden ledge, then jump off into the water.

Escaping the Land of Fables

With the three magic beans in hand, head to the marked field. Witcher Senses will help you find the right spot. Save before you chuck the beans down, as it’s all cutscenes right through to the boss fight. You may also wish to apply Ogroid Oil.

Boss: Cloud Giant

• Bomb: Dancing Star
• Oil: Ogroid
• Sign: Igni

This fight is very similar to the Golyat one from the start of the DLC, with a few extra tricks. The Cloud Giant doesn’t seem to grab much, but will kick if you’re in front of him when you attack.

The really nasty one is his habit of jumping into the clouds and re-emerging somewhere else – usually positioned perfectly for a lunging overhead strike. This is easy to avoid but don’t move until the beast reappears for best results; it’s very easy to roll or dodge too early.

Although the Cloud Giant has nice long recovery windows for you to get hits in, your best opportunities will come if you can lure him into hitting one of the electrified piles of junk around the arena. This paralyses him for a good hammering.

Otherwise, Quen is a big help if you have trouble avoiding attacks, and Igni is pretty effective. Dancing Star is recommended but you probably won't need it unless you're on a high difficulty or under-prepared.

After the battle Syanna will proposition Geralt, possibly only if you've been friendly so far. It doesn't matter what you say when she speaks of having a use for you; she's still keen. You can then opt to “let her have her way with you”, which leads to one of the franchise’s more interesting love scenes. This choice and accompanying dialogue doesn't have any known effect on the endings available to you in this branch; follow your heart.

Don’t forget to loot the giant before you go.

Dark Souls 3 reference

As you approach the castle a wisp appears. if you follow it off the left side of the bridge by vaulting the railing, you can take a narrow path underneath the boss arena to find a cute little Easter Egg and a sword. To get back to the main path, stand at the extreme edge of the ledge you first dropped down to and attempt to vault - push jump and forwards. It's tricky but can be done.

Inside the castle, just jump into the well; it's not a trick.

In the conversations that follow things don’t go super well for anyone; it doesn't seem to matter what you say to Regis and Syanna when they bicker. In any case, your chat ends the quest and move you onto the next automatically: Tesham Mutna.