Fields

The Fields are the open farmland around the village of Murky Waters in Chapter IV of The Witcher. Golden grain sways in the wind, the ruins of an old mill stand over the meadows and a hermit lives in a small hut among ancient burial mounds. A druids’ circle also stands here, which sages are said to use to measure time and, some claim, to predict the future. It looks like the setting of a fairy tale, and in a way it is one, because the land is still full of old magic.

The idyll does not survive contact with the witcher. Noonwraiths drift through the grain by day, nightwraiths and devourers come out after dark, and renegade vodyanoi have wandered in from the lake.

In The Witcher

Many of the chapter’s quests end up here. The most important is The Heat of the Day. Alina, a village girl about to marry a merchant from Kovir, dies after a quarrel tied to her sister Celina and returns as a noonwraith at the raspberry patch where she used to meet Adam in secret. To free her, Geralt gathers the five shards of her broken mirror, scattered across the Fields, and then either has Dandelion perform a poem at the patch at dusk or lets Adam sacrifice himself, depending on how he treated Abigail back in Chapter I.

In Temptation, the blacksmith’s wife wants nine portions of shimmering dust from noonwraiths to keep a succubus away from her husband, while the blacksmith would rather have nine portions of shadow dust from devourers so his affair can continue. Both kinds of dust come from the monsters of the Fields.

Small Problems, which starts with mason Harn at the broken bridge, sends Geralt into a crypt in the Fields to recover a cat harness stolen by griggs. The same crypt is home to Ureus, the monster hunted in The Ancient Cemetaur, a trophy quest from the village chief Tobias Hoffman. Expect alps, alghouls, ghouls, fleders, other cemetaurs and a garkain on the way down.

Finally, the Hermit, a druid Geralt learns about from the Lady of the Lake, offers Hunting the Wild Hunt. The King of the Wild Hunt is trying to lure the spirits of the knights buried in the mounds into his band, and Geralt has to kill nine of his wraiths at the druids’ circle at night, using mandrake root from the barrows to drive the King away.

Good to know

• The mirror shards for The Heat of the Day can only be found during the day, and each one is guarded.
• One of the Hermit’s rewards is a wreath of immortelles, which can lift the curse on Celina’s nightwraith at the end of The Heat of the Day.
• The Hermit can also give Geralt his hut, but it is nearly useless: you cannot store items or meditate there.
• Raspberries grow in the Fields, which is why Alina’s raspberry patch is where it is.