Byways

Byways is a mostly abandoned village in the far southwest of Velen, in the Mire, southeast of Duén Hen. In better times its people made prize-winning bricks. Then most of them fled north or died of the Catriona plague, and what is left is a scatter of empty houses, dead pigs and dogs in the yards, and a lonely hut up on the hill. High-level ghouls and alghouls now roam the streets, and the few people still hiding here are clearly keeping something from you.

In The Witcher 3

A Nilfgaardian patrol went missing near Byways, and its commander in Oreton wants answers. When Geralt clears the ghouls, two survivors creep out with a story that does not hold together. Push them, follow the scent from the dead soldiers up the hill, and the villager Bytomir finally confesses. The villagers had found elven ruins beneath their village and were looting them for treasure when they woke something terrible. They tried to bury the entrance, but the soldiers went back in and were torn apart.

The something is Sarasti, an ekimmara lurking in the tunnels under a locked hut whose key Bytomir hands over. Fur just inside gives it away, a few planks hide the way down, and the lair itself is cramped, so bring vampire oil and keep your dodges short. Sarasti drops an ekimmara trophy and the sword Bloed Aedd. If Geralt just reports the dead patrol without digging deeper, the commander pays anyway and the monster stays where it is.

Quests in Byways

• Contract: The Mystery of the Byways Murders
• Defender of the Faith (a wrecked shrine on the road to Frischlow)

Good to know

• Byways has a fast travel signpost.
• Don’t come too early: the ghouls here are high level.
• If you want Bytomir’s extra payment, tell him you are just nosy rather than revealing that someone hired you.
• Keira Metz’s elven ruins lie a little to the northwest, and Frischlow lies further east.