Heatherton lies in a hollow off the road west of the Inn at the Crossroads, and from the hill above it looks wrong: the whole village is wrapped in thick mist, and a strange pale frost clings to roofs, fences and bare ground in a province where nothing else is frozen. Timber cottages stand with their doors hanging open, yards and wells are empty, and wild dogs pick through what is left. The quiet here is the loud kind.

The Wild Hunt rode through one night, and the village never recovered. A single frightened survivor hides among the ruins, and he needs a steady voice and a careful touch of Axii before he will tell Geralt what he saw.

In the game, Heatherton is Geralt’s first real lead in Velen and part of the main quest The Nilfgaardian Connection. The Nilfgaardian agent Hendrik was working on Ciri’s trail here until the Hunt killed him. His hut, southwest of the survivor, hides a cellar behind a trapdoor beneath a bearskin, and the ledgers inside point Geralt toward the Bloody Baron at Crow’s Perch and the witch near Midcopse.