Fyke Island

Fyke Isle is a small island in the middle of Lake Wyndamer in the Mire, part of Velen, between the villages of Oreton and Frischlow. Seen from the water it is a low, rocky patch of land with a ruined stone tower rising from its centre. Up close the shore is littered with bones and fresh corpses, clouds of black flies drone over the ground, and the tower is crawling with rats. On the western side, a ring of standing stones marks out an old ritual site. The map simply calls it a ruined tower said to be afflicted by a terrible curse, and for once the rumours undersell it.

History

The tower belonged to Alexander, a mage who used it to study epidemics, and especially the Catriona plague, by experimenting on rats. His patron, Lord Vserad of Crow’s Perch, fled here with his family and court when the Nilfgaardian armies approached, and lived in plenty while famine ravaged his lands. Eventually the starving peasants stormed the island and killed everyone in the tower. Vserad’s daughter Anabelle survived the massacre by drinking a potion from the mage that left her in a deathlike paralysis, but when she woke she still could not move, and the rats ate her alive. Local legend tells it more simply: one day a horde of mice swarmed the tower and devoured the lord and his whole court.

In The Witcher 3

In A Towerful of Mice, Keira Metz lends Geralt her boat and a magic lamp that shows the last moments of the dead. Fighting through drowners, ghouls and rotfiends, he learns that the curse centres on Anabelle and on her love for Graham, a fisherman from Oreton who let the peasants onto the island. Anabelle’s ghost has become a pesta, a plague maiden, and Geralt’s choice decides whether Graham dies at the top of the tower or the pesta is set loose on the world.

The isle comes back twice. In For the Advancement of Learning, Keira returns for Alexander’s notes on the Catriona plague, and in Forefathers’ Eve, the Pellar holds his ritual for the dead in the stone circle, with Geralt guarding him.

Quests on Fyke Isle

Good to know

The isle has a fast travel signpost with a harbour.
Use Keira’s lamp on every haunting spot. Only after witnessing a recent murder do you get the option to refuse Anabelle’s request.
Black fly swarms on the island can be cleared with Igni.